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CASLS welcomes Dr. Kate Paesani as the incoming director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota, a sister Language Resource Center. The Language Resource Centers seek to increase the nation’s capacity for language teaching and learning. LRCs are funded by the U.S. Department of Education through Title VI.

Dr. Paesani earned her Ph.D. in French linguistics from Indiana University. Her research focuses on literacy-based curriculum and instruction and foreign language teacher development. Dr. Paesani brings a multiliteracies and sociocultural lens to CARLA’s work. Her research publications include a focus on applications of multiliteracies pedagogy in collegiate foreign language programs, integrated language and literature instruction, foreign language program articulation, teacher conceptual development, and high-leverage teaching practices.

Dr. Paesani has served as the president of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC). Prior to joining CARLA, she was an associate professor and director of basic French courses at Wayne State University. There, she received the Wayne State University’s Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award for her co-authored book, A Multiliteracies Framework for Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching.

Dr. Paesani succeeds Dr. Elaine Tarone, who is retiring in August 2016 from her roles as distinguished teaching professor at the University of Minnesota and director of CARLA–a position she began when the center was launched in 1993. Dr. Tarone is known for her work on the impact of social context on learner language and second language acquisition. She has published research on oral second language processing by low-literacy learners, interlanguage variation, interaction in immersion classrooms, language play, and genre analysis. Dr. Tarone is the past editor of Applied Linguistics and past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL). She holds AAAL’s 2012 Distinguished Scholar and Service Award and the TESOL “50 at 50” Award “for significant contributions to the TESOL profession within the last 50 years.”