Leadership

Anastassia Zabrodskaja is Professor of Intercultural Communication and Head of the Communication Management Master’s programme at Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media and Arts School. She is an Executive Director of the European Masters in Intercultural Communication programme.  Professor Zabrodskaja is a Management Committee Member of the COST CA21143 project "Transnational Family Dynamics in Europe"  (2022-2026). Her research deals with identity, intercultural communication, code-switching and linguistic landscape. She has published an Estonian-language monograph and numerous articles on bilingualism, translanguaging and language contacts. Profile in the Estonian Research Information System: https://www.etis.ee/CV/Anastassia_Zabrodskaja/eng

Marko Dragojevic is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky. He studies language and interpersonal/intergroup communication. In particular, his research focuses on the communicative significance of linguistic variation – that is, differences in language use, including the use of different accents, dialects, and languages. His research tries to answer three broad questions: (1) How do we evaluate different language varieties and the speakers who use them? (2) How do those evaluations influence our own and others’ communicative behavior? (3) What are the cognitive and affective processes underlying those effects? He pursues these questions in three related lines of research: language attitudes, linguistic accommodation, and linguistic framing in persuasion. His recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Human Communication Research, Language in Society, and Journal of Health Communication. 

Ivy Xiaoyan Wu is a PhD candidate with the Department of English and Communication at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her PhD thesis is positioned at the intersection of the social psychology of language and cross-cultural psychology and investigates the role of language and communication in Mainland Chinese students’ cross-cultural adaptation to Hong Kong. Ivy takes an intergroup approach to both second language acquisition and health communication. She focuses on both practitioner-patient and practitioner-practitioner communication, and has also researched into end-of-life communication between care workers and their service users.

Dr. Yan Bing Zhang is a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. Dr. Zhang studies the ways in which cognitive schemas, societal norms and values, and media representations of groups relate to communication processes. She also studies the influence that direct, extended, or mediated intergroup and intercultural contact has on interpersonal relationships and intergroup attitudes. Her publications have appeared in some U.S. and international journals in communication and social psychology including Journal of Communication, Communication Monographs, New Media & Society, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, and Journal of Language and Social Psychology. Dr. Zhang has chaired the Communication and Aging Division of the National Communication Association, and currently serves on the editorial boards of a few communication journals. Dr. Zhang has been a member of IALSP for years.

Fabio Fasoli is a Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey, where he serves as the programme leader for the Social Psychology MSc programme and co-director of the Sex, Gender, and Sexualities Research Centre. His research interests span several key areas within language and social psychology, with a particular focus on three main topics: 1) how voice is perceived as a cue of sexual orientation and the stigmatisation faced by individuals perceived as gay-sounding, 2) the impact and consequences of exposure to derogatory group labels and the psychological process of language reappropriation, and 3) the role of social media imagery and humour on users’ body image concerns. Fabio’s work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals that cover diverse disciplines such as social psychology, language and linguistics, communication, and gender studies. His research contributes to a deeper understanding of how social cues and language shape societal interactions.

Dr. Odilia Yim is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion Lab (directed by Dr. Sonia Kang) in the University of Toronto (UTM) Department of Management. She completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Ottawa, where she examined the social correlates of bilingualism, specifically how language switching relates to attitudes, cultural identity, and group solidarity. Her research focuses on the role of language in driving social psychological behaviours, such as social evaluations and language-based bias and discrimination. Odilia has centred her work among minority and marginalized populations, such as first- and second-generation immigrants from the Chinese community in Canada, with the goal to better understand the unique experiences of ethnic minorities and create identity-safe spaces within society.

[website link: www.odiliayim.com]

Elvis ResCue (PhD) is a lecturer at the Department of English of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. He holds PhD and MA in Applied Linguistics from Aston University, Birmingham- UK, and BA degree in Linguistics with English from the University of Ghana, Legon. His research interests and expertise lie in the area of African Linguistics, Language Policy and Planning, Discourse Analysis, Language Contact, Sociolinguistics, Language and New Media, and General Linguistics. He has published on monolingual and multilingual media of instruction in multilingual contexts with a focus on Ghana in West Africa, and has also published on the use of minority languages in new media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. His publications appeared in the Ghana Journal of Linguistics, Current Issues in Language Planning, Applied Linguistics Review, Journal of Linguistics and has also published a chapter in The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics, and other chapters published by Multilingual Matters and John Benjamins. He has served as an executive member on several international associations such as the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL), Linguistics Association of Ghana (LAG), and the BAAL Language in Africa – Special Interest Group. 

Mian (James) Jia is an assistant professor in the Department of English at the City University of Hong Kong. His first line of research explores the persuasive effects of linguistic and normative message influence strategies on raising people's awareness of health issues in multilingual societies and across different cultures. His second line of research examines how interlocutors use linguistic politeness and other meta discourse markers to communicate social support and social influence in various interpersonal and mediated contexts. He uses methods such as experimental design, corpus analysis, content analysis, and computerized text analysis. His recent publications have appeared in journals such as Applied Linguistics, Health Communication, Lingua, Pragmatics and Society, Text & Talk, and Vaccines. His current projects are funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China and the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong SAR.

Blair Ying Jin works as a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of English and Communication, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is primarily interested in health communication, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and social media discourse. She is now working on two projects: computer-mediated emotional discourse in online medical consultations and cancer care. Her published work includes empirical articles and book chapters on doctor-patient interactions, parent-child interactions, and social media discourse. Her publications have appeared in international journals on linguistics such as Applied Linguistics, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Discourse Studies, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Journal of Pragmatics, Chinese Language and Discourse, Communication & Medicine.

Zhengyu (Tracy) Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Western Washington University and a Faculty Associate at the Center for Cross-Cultural Research. Her research focuses on interpersonal and health communication. In particular, she studies the management of private information in close relationships, including self-disclosure and secrecy, as well as the role of language and message features in persuasion, risk perceptions, and health decision-making. Her recent projects examine imagined disclosure in close relationships and strategic language choices in health messages, including antibiotic stewardship and HPV-related communication. She uses methods such as experiments, surveys, structural equation modeling, and text analysis. Her publications have appeared in journals including Personal Relationships, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Health Communication, Chinese Journal of Communication, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and Journal of Health Psychology. 

Dr. Xun Zhu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky, United States. His research centers on the formation and consequences of shared cognition, such as social stigma and collective norms. His primary goal is to understand the communication and psychological processes through which ideas circulate within and across social groups, linking macro-level patterns of collective understanding with the micro-level interactions through which beliefs are expressed. His work has appeared in journals such as Communication Monographs, Communication Research, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Health Communication, and Stigma and Health. He was first introduced to IALSP at its conference in Tallinn, Estonia, and is grateful for the conversations and mentorship the organization has fostered. He looks forward to continuing to learn from and contribute to the IALSP community.

Karolina Hansen is a professor at the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and a researcher at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language in Mannheim, Germany. She is a member of the Polish Young Academy of Sciences. She received her PhD in psychology from Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, was a research affiliate at Yale University, USA, and a visiting researcher at Cornell University, USA and at University of Bern, Switzerland. She studies topics such as language and accent attitudes, gender-neutral language, non-binary language, or linguistic purism. She uses different methods combining experiments, surveys, and qualitative data to better understand the role of language in intergroup contexts. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Psychology of Language and Communication [https://sciendo.com/journal/plc]

Virginia Gründler received her Master’s degree in Cognitive Psychology and Learning from the Autonomous University of Madrid. She also holds a Specialization in Language Teaching -Spanish as a Second Language- from the University of the Republic. She is a language teacher and a teacher trainer. She has taught English as a foreign language to learners of different ages and levels and future teachers in different provinces in Uruguay. Virginia has also taught Spanish as a second language to migrant learners of diverse origins in the Language Policy Department of the National Administration of Public Education and at the University of the Republic. In the Language Policy Department, she has been responsible for Español L2, a national program of Spanish as a second language for non-Spanish-speaking migrant learners living in Uruguay. Virginia is a PhD candidate with the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires. Her research focuses on identity processes in the context of language teaching and learning. 

Traci is a PhD student in Applied Social Psychology at the University of Saskatchewan. Their research interests include the role of communication in transmitting biased beliefs about sociocultural groups, the development of equitable research partnerships, and decolonial approaches to community health.

Lloyd Lindley Jr. is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Leadership and Organization at Texas Woman’s University in the United States. His research sits at the intersection of education, language, and social psychology, examining how place, identity, and communication shape perceptions of opportunity and belonging. His current work explores educational inequality, spatial segregation, and the ways individuals construct meaning around schools, communities, and social institutions.

Drawing on perspectives from educational leadership, social psychology, and communication studies, Lloyd is particularly interested in how language reflects and reinforces social boundaries, group identities, and perceptions of equity. His broader research interests include comparative education, educational policy, and the relationship between discourse, place, and social change.