Plenaries

Dr. Lia Plakans delivered her plenary address on Saturday, September 14.

Lia Plakans is a professor of Foreign Language and ESL Education at the University of Iowa and Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education. Previously, she was an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on second language learning with particular emphasis on language assessment and literacy.

Dr. Plakans currently chairs the Committee of Examiners for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) at Educational Testing Service. She has co-authored two books Assessment Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching and Reading and Writing for Academic Success. Her research has been published in academic journals such as Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Assessing Writing, Language Teaching, and Journal of Second Language Writing. She is an associate editor for Language Assessment Quarterly and served as an associate editor for the Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Dr. Plakans has held various service positions for the International Language Testing Association and was the president of the Midwest Association of Language Testers from 2005-2010.

Dr. Lorena Llosa delivered her plenary address on Friday, September 13.

Dr. Lorena Llosa is an Associate Professor of Education in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Her work addresses the teaching, learning, and assessment of content and language of English learners in K-16 contexts. Her recent studies have focused on validity issues in the assessment of academic writing and the integration of language and content in instruction and assessment. She is currently Co-Principal Investigator on two projects funded by the National Science Foundation to develop science curricula and assessments that support English learners’ science learning, computational thinking, and language development.