
I am an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Academic Writing and have been awarded an ASPiRE Research Fellowship at the Centre for Arts, Memory, and Communities at Coventry University. Generally, I lecture and conduct research on academic writing, academic discourse, corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics, and language pedagogy. I am also a Managing Editor of the Journal of Academic Writing, a Géras International Correspondent, Section Editor for the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (4th Ed.), and I am a member of the IVACS Advisory Board. Before working at Coventry, I held posts in industry research at Cambridge University Press, as a lecteur at the University of Angers, France, and as a part-time lecturer at the University of Limerick, Ireland. My research interests span fields of linguistics and applied linguistics covering:
- applied linguistics
- corpus linguistics
- contrastive linguistics
- academic discourse (English, French, Spanish) and discourse analysis
- language teaching and learning, and digital pedagogies.
I regularly give talks on these topics and have spoken on different areas of language and language pedagogy as a plenary speaker, invited speaker, and conference speaker. I have also worked extensively in teacher training and development, have experience of developing research informed language teaching materials, and have given talks on research informed practice all around the world.
In terms of writing, I am working on a number of papers and book chapters centering on corpus linguistics and language pedagogy. In 2021, I published a monograph with Routledge, entitled “Academic Writing and Reader Engagement: Contrasting Questions in English, French and Spanish Corpora”, which forms part of their Applied Corpus Studies series. With regard to current work, I am involved in a number of international research projects on English Medium Instruction in Higher Education, and metadiscourse in English and Spanish scientific writing with the University of Cambridge, the University of Valencia, and the University of Murcia. I am also working on advancing my research in the field of corpus-based contrastive linguistics.
Beyond traditional academic roles, I regularly consult with industry to use my research in applied linguistics to help inform industry practices in language and education. Feel free to get in touch if you think I can be of help with anything you are working on.
Qualifications:
- PhD Applied Linguistics: “Reader engagement in English, French and Spanish economics research articles: Contrasting questions in a comparable corpus of academic writing“, University of Limerick.
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- MA Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, University of Limerick.
- PG Cert. Academic Practice for Higher Education, Coventry University.
- BA Hons Applied Languages (French, Spanish, TEFL, Linguistics), University of Limerick.