Dear ICIS comminity members,

I am delighted and honoured to introduce our ICIS leadership team for the coming year.

Our chair is RAMIN YAZDANPANAH, who is about to move from his present post as the TEFL program coordinator and teacher educator at Florida State University to his future university post in Vietnam, Asia. Ramin has just obtained his PhD in international and comparative education from Florida State University. He focussed his research on interculturality, seen through the cultural synergy within ELT teacher programmes. Ramin is keenly interested in global perspectives on education and in developing a creative methodology that fosters continuous personal and professional growth.

This year’s chair-elect is BARBARA LAPORNIK, who comes from the city of Trieste, Italy. She is currently the European project manager, vice principal, and exam tutor at the Liceo Scientifico – Državni znanstveni licej “France Prešeren” in Trieste. She has studied at the Universities of Venice – Ca'Foscari and of Urbino, Italy, obtaining her MA in linguistic and literary studies. Having been raised in a bilingual setting and having travelled worlwide, she focusses her present research on intercultural student education, both within the European international projects and in diverse studying contexts.

Our newsletter has been edited by two co-editors, NATALIA BALYASNIKOVA and PATRIANN SMITH, scholars who are deeply interested in multilingualism and intercultural communication within language and literacy education. Patriann teaches courses in reading and literacy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Natalia is just about to obtain her PhD from the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Vancouver, Canada. In her research, Natalia examines adult immigrant learners’ experience of interculturality. She also works within senior education at UBC Learning Exchange and volunteer-run ESL Vancouver programmes.

JEREMY SLAGOSKI is our community manager. He is the curriculum coordinator for the Center for English as a Second Language at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Having been raised in a multicultural family, he has focussed his interest on intercultural communication, researching the cultural learning and adjustment of English language teachers. Jeremy obtained his PhD in foreign language and ESL education from the University of Iowa in 2014, trained intercultural communication for Kirkwood Community College till 2015. He wishes to intermingle his experience in intercultural professional networking with his position as the ICIS community manager.

We would like to conclude our ICIS team presentation with our two ICIS members-at-large. The first is AMY ALICE CHASTAIN, already a former ICIS chair and current lecturer from the University of Iowa. Amy previously taught at universities abroad both in Shantou, China as well as at the Emirates College for Advanced Education in Abu Dhabi. The second member at large is, ROXANNA M. SENYSHYN, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, where she teaches TESOL education and intercultural communication courses for pre-service and in-service teachers. She is currently working on a project focusing on the internationalization of teaching and learning.

We would also like to thank our past chair MAXI-ANN CAMPELL for all her past and present work dedicated to our interest section community. Maxi is currently EFL and Writing Instructor at Duke Kunshan University in China and is co-author of the latest edition of the book More Than a Native Speaker.

Let our community grow , offering stimuli and challenging ideas to all our members!