Professional Experience

Language Assessment Specialist | 2020 – present 

Lead assessment strategy, innovation, and research for institutional and cross-institutional testing.

• Oversee language assessment programs, including the Academic English Proficiency Assessment, Academic Reading Comprehension Assessment, and Foreign Language Proficiency Certification, establishing policy, governance, and validation protocols across departments.

• Designed and launched a fully online, at-home English source-based writing test with an integrated text-borrowing checker.

• Established and lead an institutional research program, securing IRB approval, directing validation studies, and driving assessment reforms.

• Spearhead strategic reforms to assessment programs, modernizing test delivery, scoring, and reporting processes and test formats to improve reliability and stakeholder confidence.

• Direct development and oversight of a longitudinal research database, enabling evidence-based policy and program evaluation.

• Deliver workshops across institutions to build assessment literacy, strengthening sector-wide capacity.

Impact Highlights: Raised test validity and fairness; strengthened cross-institutional assessment literacy; created innovative assessment tools. 

Research Assistant (multiple funded projects) | 2016 – 2019 

• Contributed to ETS-funded projects on grammatical complexity, corpus-based validation, and automated assessment tools.

• Built corpora, conducted statistical analyses, and co-authored validation studies, including TOEFL research.

• Directed and mentored a research support team. 

• • Project #1: Automated Functional Language Extraction System (AFLEX), interdisciplinary project, funded by Iowa State University, supervised by Elena Cotos (01 – 05/2016)  

• • Project #2: The Longitudinal Development of Grammatical Complexity at the Phrasal and Clausal Levels, funded by ETS, supervised by Bethany Gray (08/2016 – 12/2017)  

• • Project #3: A corpus-based study on the English Placement Test Writing, supervised by Bethany Gray (01 – 05/2018) 

  • Project #4: Global Online Course (called “Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom”), funded by U.S. Department of State, supervised by Volker Hegelheimer and Carol Chapelle (08 – 12/2019)

English Placement Test Coordinator | 2016 – 2019

• Directed development and validation of English placement testing for large student populations.

• Led test design for reading, listening, and writing assessments, including specifications and rater training.

• Established data-driven validation practices by applying robust statistical analyses.

• Developed and institutionalized the first placement test writing corpus, creating infrastructure for future research and rater training.

• Streamlined administration, reporting, and stakeholder communication.

Impact Highlights: Improved test quality and reliability; delivered sustainable infrastructure for test validation and rater training.

 Instructor | 2013 – 2019

• Undergraduate courses: Introduction to Linguistics, Academic Reading and Listening for ESL Students, First-year Composition

• Graduate course: Second Language Assessment, Grammatical Analysis, Introduction to Linguistics, Language Test Validity (guest lecturer) 

Intern | 2018

Tasks: review literature, conduct statistical analyses, recommend changes to rating scales, analyze rater feedback, draft test development report, assist with developing test score reports and rater training materials for the MET Go! Speaking and Writing 

Intern | 2017

Tasks: work in test quality control, update test bank databases, conduct statistical analyses, conduct domain analysis for ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 

Speaking Examiner | 2011 – 2013

Tests: Preliminary English Test (PET), First Certificate of English (FCE) 

Lecturer of English | 2006 – 2013

• Taught General English, academic writing, English for Specific Purposes, and language teaching methodology. 

• Designed tests and mentored instructors. 

Teaching Assistant for Young Learners | 2015