Professional Bio

Meredith Doran is an applied linguist with over 25 years of experience teaching and researching sociolinguistics, language ideologies, second language acquisition and pedagogy, language teacher education, and pragmatics.  Her sociolinguistic work includes a focus on linguistic hybridity and identity in diglossic societies, including Kreyòl-French literature in Haiti, and the use of Verlan, a youth sociolect, in multilingual France.  She has held multiple positions related to second language learning and international education at Penn State, serving as a faculty member in French and Applied Linguistics, as faculty director of an education abroad program at the Centre de Linguistique Appliquée in France, as coordinator of the International Teaching Assistant Preparation Program, and as research associate in the Center for Language Acquisition.  She is currently director of EPPIC (the English for Professional Purposes Intercultural Center), a research and service center that works closely with multilingual students to promote skill and confidence in multiple genres of advanced academic and professional English. In this role, Meredith Doran analyzes discipline-specific academic communication (in fields including Economics, Medicine, Hospitality Management and Mechanical Engineering) to inform EPPIC’s research-based language support services.  Her work in EPPIC also involves outreach and consultation on multilingual DEIB with faculty, staff, advisers and students across the university community.

Publications

Doran, M. & Rieker, J. (Eds.) (Forthcoming). Innovations in EMI faculty professional development: Connecting program design, implementation, and impact. Springer Nature.

Rieker, J., Doran, M., & Chen, Y. S. (Forthcoming). Mediating development of STEM faculty as student L2 developers: Redefining engagement and learning in English-Medium Instruction through collaborative Vygotskian praxis. In J. P. Lantolf & M. E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural theory: Creating conditions for L2 development. University of Toronto.

Doran, M., Rieker, J., & Yang, Y. (2025). Redefining faculty ‘preparedness’ in English medium instruction: Impact from an innovative professional development initiative in Taiwan. Journal of English-Medium Instruction, 4(2), 145-165.

Rieker, J., & Doran, M. (2025). Making time count: Kairos as temporal, methodological, and ethical innovation in qualitative applied linguistics research. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 100207.

Doran, M., & Rieker, J. (2025). L2 teacher educators as creators of EMI faculty development: How imagination makes pedagogical innovation possible. In K. E. Johnson, P. R. Golombek & J. Rieker (Eds.), Transformative L2 teacher education innovations: Insights from Vygotskian sociocultural theory (pp. 228-252). Routledge.

Douglas Fir Group. (2016).  A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world.  The Modern Language Journal, 100 (S1), 19-47.

Golombek, P. & Doran, M. (2014). Unifying cognition, emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development.  Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 102-111.

Doran, M. (2007).  Alternative French, alternative identities:  Situating language in la Banlieue. Contemporary French & Francophone Studies (Sites), 11, 497-508.

Doran, M. (2004).  Negotiating between Bourge and Racaille: ‘Verlan’ as youth identity practice in suburban Paris.  In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 93-124).  Clevedon, UK:  Multilingual Matters.