Planning Team

Dina has a B.A. in Social Sciences (double major: History and Political Science) from the University of the Philippines, an MPA from the University of the Cordilleras, and her Ph.D. in Anthropology is from the National University of Singapore. She is TESOL certified and teaches adult ENL learners at SUNY Westchester Community College. Prior to this, Dina was a lecturer in Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and has been a volunteer English teacher for over two decades for Indigenous communities in the Philippines, migrant domestic workers in Singapore, and college students in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. She has also done research and published on Indigenous Peoples (IP) rights, labor migration, and transnational call centers.

Ting Zhang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Change at the Warner Graduate School of Education, University of Rochester, where she also teaches academic writing. Ting is dedicated to exploring and demystifying the conditions, practices, and processes of upward mobility in the fields of academic publishing and ESL/EAP teacher professional development. She has published in System, Journal of Second Language Writing, and co-authored the book An A-W of academic literacy: Key concepts and practices for graduate students (University of Michigan Press, 2021).

Titcha Ho received her MA in English from City College of New York and Graduate Certificate in Teaching Writing from Stony Brook University. She teaches first year writing courses for multilingual writers at Baruch College, CUNY. She worked as a lecturer teaching ESL students in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program at the State University of New York at Albany for six years before joining Baruch’s English department. Before SUNY-Albany, Titcha worked as a multilingual writing specialist at Baruch College Writing Center and taught composition at Queensborough Community College and City College.

Titcha has presented her research on teaching writing to multilingual students at international writing studies conferences, including the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Symposium on Second Language Writing, and the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention. She served as a secretary/historian for the Second Language Writing Standing Group of the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 2017-2018. In addition to teaching, Titcha worked as a qualitative researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University and served at Thailand’s Mission at the UN.

Dr. Xueyan Sherry Duan was born in a village near Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. She attended Inner Mongolia Normal University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages. She later pursued her study in the U.S. and received her Master of Science degree in Teaching and Curriculum from the University of Rochester. After teaching English at a local public school in Rochester, she developed a strong research interest in digitally-rich teaching and learning, so she decided to start her Ph.D. study at the Warner School of Education, University of Rochester. During her doctoral study, she worked as a research assistant at two NSF-funded research projects, researching an online-based professional development model for teachers in rural areas. She also led several language and educational technology related instructional design and practice projects in both China and the U.S. Being an active member of the community, she was the vice president of the Chinese Student Scholarship Association of the University of Rochester and has volunteered to teach Chinese at the local Chinese school since 2014. Currently, she is focusing on teaching academic English and researching technology-based instructional design in higher education.

Yana Shifrina-Piljovin teaches English as a New (Second) Language both in public school and on a college level in New York City. She earned an M.S. in TESOL from City College and a Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) in the Department of Learning and Teaching majoring in Applied Linguistics from Hofstra University. Her research interests focus on bilingualism, bi-literacy, and biculturalism. She can be reached at yshifrinapiljov@schools.nyc.gov

Yu Jung Han is an adjunct professor at Warner School of Education, University of Rochester. Her specific interest lies in interest-driven language teaching and learning, transcultural fan practices and identity development as well as computer-assisted language learning (CALL).

She is an avid traveler and a proud TESOLer with 18 years of international teaching experience, first in her native country of Korea, and later in Japan and the United States. She has been with NYS TESOL Applied Linguistic SIG for years, especially with a specific focus on annual Applied Lingustics Winter Conferences.