James E. Purpura is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education in the TESOL and Applied Linguistics Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. He teaches courses in language assessment and research design. His books include Learner strategy use and performance on L2 tests: A SEM approach (CUP, 1999), Assessing grammar (CUP, 2004), and he is currently co-authoring a book on Learning-Oriented Language Assessment (Routledge). He has articles in several top journals in Applied Linguistics and edited volumes. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Language Assessment Quarterly and is series co-editor of both New Perspectives in Language Assessment (Routledge) and Innovations in Language Learning and Assessment at ETS (Routledge). Jim has served on the Committee of Examiners (ETS) and on the U.S. Defense Language Testing Advisory Panel. He is an expert member of the European Association of Language Testing and Assessment. He was President of the International Language Testing Association from 2007 to 2008. He is a visiting faculty member and teaches in the Doctoral program at Hellenic American University.
Claire Kramsch (Licence d'Enseignement, Université de Paris-Sorbonne) Agregation d'Allemand, Université de Paris-Sorbonne) has been Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition at Berkeley since 1989. She holds honorary doctorates from the Middlebury School of Languages 1998 and St. Michael’s College 2001. She was also the 1994/95 President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics and was co-editor of the journal Applied Linguistics from 1998-2003. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the UC electronic L2 Journal. She is also director of the Berkeley Language Center and teaches in the School of Education. She is a visiting faculty member and teaches in the Doctoral program at Hellenic American University.
Her research interests include Second language acquisition, applied linguistics, discourse analysis and social and cultural theory.
Gabriele Kasper is Professor of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her research addresses social interaction in multilingual contexts, including second language learning and assessment, the social side of cognition and emotion, and standard research methods in applied linguistics. Her contributions to applied linguistics research methodology include early publications on verbal protocols and speech act pragmatics. Her courses are concerned with language and social interaction, learning and development inside and outside of educational settings, and qualitative research. She is a visiting faculty member and teaches in the Doctoral program at Hellenic American University.
Nicholas Alexiou received his M.A. degree in Sociology from Queens College, CUNY, and his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, CUNY. He has taught in the Department of Sociology and the Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at Queens College since 1990, and recently received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. His fields of interest are ethnic studies, political sociology, social theory, social research and statistics, and issues concerning the Greek-American community. He has established the first Oral History Archive for the Greeks of New York and he is the Director of the Hellenic American Project, at Queens College, CUNY. A contemporary poet and artist as well, he is the author of five books of poetry, and many of his poems have been published in Greek and American journals and anthologies. He is a visiting faculty member and teaches in the General Education program.