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Researchers

Kym Taylor

PhD, Applied Linguistics

Chief Director, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Kym Taylor earned her PhD in Applied Linguistics from Concordia University in Montreal, QC, Canada. She has over fifteen years of experience in second language research and assessment and has been employed as a second language educator and administrator at several elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions in the United States and Canada. Her research interests include applied linguistics, language assessment, second language education, language variation and change, social attitudes towards non-native speakers, social network analysis, and sociolinguistic aspects of second language acquisition.

Ali H. Raddaoui

PhD, Linguistics

Advisory Board Member, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Ali H. Raddaoui is a certified English language teacher with a multicultural outlook developed over many years of teaching, living, and serving in diverse communities. His academic background is in English language teaching and applied linguistics, and he holds a Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. He currently serves as a Senior Research Associate and Linguistic Consultant with ITSC and conducts usability testing to ensure the integrity and fairness of language proficiency assessments. As a language teaching professional, he has gained ample experience in curriculum design, program management, and research design. His work is deeply rooted in learning theory, norm-referenced testing, and best practices in teaching pedagogy. He is particularly passionate about the intersection of technology and learning. His ongoing research focuses on how AI and technological advancements impact the future of education. Through this work, he aims to contribute to the development of innovative educational practices that meet the evolving needs of a rapidly changing world.

Janna Schaeffer

PhD, Second Language Acquisition and Teaching

Senior Researcher, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Janna Schaeffer has worked in the field of second/foreign language assessment and international education since 2000. Over the course of her professional career, she has taught undergraduate and graduate English language courses at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. In recent years, Dr. Schaeffer has been affiliated with the English for Heritage Language Speakers program at Georgetown University, where she worked closely with the university faculty, led curriculum and second language assessment and curricular design, development and implementation. In the private sector, Janna also worked on managing the design of English language proficiency reading, writing, and listening assessments that were administered as a measurement in scientific, academic, and professional EFL/ESL contexts. Dr. Schaeffer holds two master's degrees (in SLAT/TESOL and in German Studies) and a PhD in SLAT (Second Language Acquisition and Teaching) with an emphasis on Comparative Higher Education. She is ACTFL and IELTS certified.

Masood Raja

PhD, Postcolonial Literature and Theory

Advisory Board Member, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Masood Raja earned his PhD in Postcolonial Literature and Theory from Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL, United States. He has over twenty years of experience in teaching, research, and assessment and was a tenured Associate Professor of English at University of North Texas, United States, until fall of 2022. Dr. Raja has published four academic monographs, three edited volumes, and about forty articles and book chapters, and was also the founding editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. Dr. Raja’s research work is always focused on issues of cross-cultural understanding and cultural translation. Fluent in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, English, and Japanese, Dr. Raja is also a certified User Experience Researcher and a Usability Expert.

Marc Nachowitz

PhD, Curriculum and Instruction

Senior Researcher, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Nachowitz has worked in the field of literacy education since 1996 as both a high school teacher and university professor. With over fourteen years of classroom teaching experience, Dr. Nachowitz earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in adolescent literacy development, and was a Professor of Literacy Education at Miami University’s Department of Teacher Education. Dr. Nachowitz’ research focuses on two areas: writing to support content mastery, and designing learning experiences by which students create, rather than consume, knowledge. He coauthored Writing Instruction that Works; Proven Methods for Middle and High School Classrooms (Teachers College Press), edited High Literacy in Secondary English Language Arts; Bridging the Gap to College and Career (Lexington Books), and his research has been published in scholarly journals including English Journal, Journal of Writing Research, Online Learning, Voices from the Middle, and Research in the Teaching of English.

Andy Coates

PhD, Linguistics

Senior Editor, ITSC GROUP

Dr. Andy Coates earned his PhD in Linguistics from Manchester Metropolitan University. His research interests include communicative language teaching, corpus linguistics, academic writing, and English for Academic Purposes. He has worked in English education for over thirteen years, including as a trainer on international aid projects to encourage communicative language teaching methodology in Tanzania and Malaysia. He currently works on test development and quality control at ITSC.