Keynote Speakers

Professor Terry Myers Zawacki
George Mason University, USA

Abstract

Terry Myers Zawacki is an emerita professor of English at George Mason University, where she directed the nationally recognized Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program and the University Writing Center. Prior to her retirement, Prof. Zawacki was the recipient of the David J. King Award given annually to a faculty member who has made significant, long-term contributions to the overall educational excellence of the university; a University Excellence in Teaching award; and a "Students as Scholars" Mentor award.

Her publications include the co-authored Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the Academic Writing Life and the co-edited collections WAC and Second Language Writers: Research towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Practices and Writing Across the Curriculum: A Critical Sourcebook. Her invited articles include the co-authored "Internationalization, English L2 Writers, and the Writing Classroom: Implications for Teaching and Learning" in the June 2014 College Composition and Communication, "Observations of WAC in China" in the 2014 WAC Journal, and chapters on faculty attitudes and expectations for L2 writers, writing assessment in the disciplines, writing centers and writing fellows, and writing in learning communities. She has co-edited special issues of WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship (November 2015) focused on support for thesis and dissertation writers and Across the Disciplines (December 2011) on WAC and second language (L2) writing. Her current research investigates the challenges faced by dissertation writers and their advisers across the disciplines.

Additionally, she is lead editor for the book series International Exchanges on the Study of Writing and serves on a number of editorial boards and national professional committees, including chairing the CCCC Committee on the Globalization of Postsecondary Writing Instruction and Research.

Dr Ursula Wingate
King's College London, UK

Abstract

Ursula Wingate is Senior Lecturer in Language in Education and works in the Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication at King's College London. Before moving to London, Ursula taught for eight years at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and four years at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests are in academic literacy, English language policies and practices, and language teaching methodology. In recent projects, Ursula has developed and evaluated various approaches to teaching academic literacy in mainstream higher education, drawing on the King's Apprentice Writing Corpus for the creation of instructional resources in different disciplines. Her publications in this area are concerned with the theoretical models underpinning literacy instruction, the impact of formative feedback on academic writing, and the teaching and learning of argumentation. In her recent book 'Academic Literacy and Student Diversity: The Case for Inclusive Practice', Ursula promotes the concept of academic literacy as the ability to communicate in a new discourse community, an ability which involves an epistemological and sociocultural understanding of the academic discipline and needs to be acquired by students from all backgrounds. She proposes a curriculum-embedded model of academic literacy instruction, which is based on the collaboration of literacy experts with academics in the disciplines, and argues that market forces such as growing competition for students and the expectations of diverse student populations will increase the need for universities to develop instructional approaches that are discipline-specific and inclusive of all students.

Professor Rainer Glaser
University of Missouri, USA

Abstract

Dr. Rainer Ernst Glaser, Professor of Chemistry, studied chemistry and physics in Tübingen (Chem.-Dipl., 1984), at Berkeley (Ph.D., 1987), and at Yale (post-doctoral fellow, 1987-9). Glaser is a broadly interested physical organic chemist and his group has published over 160 papers with support by ACS-PRF, NSF, and NIH. Glaser has always valued and enjoyed extensive collaborations with chemists, biochemists, physicists, mathematicians, astronomers, educators and journalists. In 1995, Glaser began his education research with the novel curriculum, Chemistry Is in the News (CIITN), which he designed for chemistry education of science majors. The NSF funded CIITN project integrates science content with science context and science communication. With the subsequent NSF funded project Mathematics an Life Sciences he took an important step to more interdisciplinarity and especially to the integration of mathematics in science education. Glaser's most recent educational initiative, the development of a curriculum for the instruction on Scientific Writing and Authoring embraces the spirit of CIITN and more fully integrates quantitative analysis into science education. The curriculum was developed for a writing-intensive, upper-division undergraduate seminar course taught at the University of Missouri in Columbia (MU). Scientific Writing in Chemistry integrates content, context, collaboration and communication and, in fact, the curriculum addresses an essential need for science students across the globe. Since 2010, Glaser has taught an adaptation of the Scientific Writing curriculum in the Summer School Program of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (UCAS). Glaser was a Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) in 1997 at Hokkaido University, Sapporo. Glaser was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2004 and Fellow of the Royal Chemical Society in 2006. He was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in 2013 and 2014 and a Guest Professor at the Department of Chemistry of Northwest University in Xi'an in 2014.