Johanna is is a specialist in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in primary education, with extensive experience in language teaching and teacher education. She previously served as Studies Director at Kids&Us, an international language-learning organisation, and is currently an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Education, where she teaches in the TEFL minor. She has participated in numerous international research projects focusing on language teaching and learning, intercultural competence, and educational technology. After working for three years as a research technician with the GREIP research group, she is currently pursuing a PhD in Education under the supervision of Melinda Dooly and Randall Sadler. Her doctoral research explores the use of low-immersion virtual reality (VR) to support language learning among very young learners.
Mónica López Vera is an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) specialist in primary education and an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Education, where she teaches in the TEFL minor, specialising in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). She has participated in numerous international research projects focusing on language teaching and learning, intercultural competence, and educational technology and has published articles and chapters on this topic. She has also worked as a teacher trainer for the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya). Her research experience includes contributing to the design and data collection of studies exploring the use of virtual reality (VR) in primary school EFL education.
Dr. Randall Sadler is a Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Illinois English as a Second Language (ESL) and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He teaches courses on technology-infused language teaching, virtual worlds and language learning, the teaching of L2 reading and writing, and Second Language Acquisition. His research focuses on the role of technology in language learning, particularly the potential of telecollaboration, virtual worlds, and virtual reality to enhance language learning and intercultural communication. He has published widely in these areas in journals including Journal of English for Academic Purposes, CALICO Journal, ReCALL, Language Learning & Technology, and Computers & Education, as well as in numerous edited volumes. He is the author of Virtual Worlds, Telecollaboration, and Language Learning: From Theory to Practice (Peter Lang) and co-editor, along with Melinda Dooly, of Peter Lang’s book series Telecollaborative Learning and Virtual Exchange in Education.
Dr. Tricia Thrasher holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is Director of Research & Validation at the IMMERSE, where she is responsible for securing research funding and inititatives. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and presents her work at international conferences, contributing to the bridge between academic research and real-world product development. She serves on the CALICO Executive Board and remains active in the research community focused on technology-enhanced language teaching and learning.
Dr. Ciara R. Wigham is a Senior Lecturer in English Language Teaching and Didactics at Université Clermont Auvergne, France. She teaches on the Master’s programme in English Language Teaching and the pedagogical engineering and digital tools track within the Master’s in Education. Her research focuses on Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), with particular interests in multimodal pedagogical communication in online language teaching and learning, teacher education in CALL, and methodologies for documenting and analysing online interactions through multimodal computer-mediated communication (CMC) corpora. She recently co-authored a book on instruction-giving practices in online language lessons (Satar & Wigham, 2023) and has recently completed participation in the European E-LIVE project (Engaging Languages for Intercultural Virtual Exchange). She is a permanent member of the ACTé research laboratory (Activité, Connaissance, Transmission, Éducation) and has published extensively on technology-mediated language teaching and learning.