Ulla Licandro is Professor of Heterogeneity and Diversity Under Special Consideration of Inclusive Educational Contexts at the Department of Special Needs Education and Rehabilitation. Prior to joining UOL, Prof. Licandro completed her studies in Germany (TU Dortmund), Hungary (ELTE Budapest) and the United States (University of Iowa) and was a pre- and postdoctoral researcher at Leibniz University Hannover as well as a visiting scholar at Ohio State University.

Prof. Licandro’s research focuses on language acquisition and interaction in educational settings. Of particular interest are ways of diagnosing and supporting language acquisition at the interface of multilingualism, social disadvantages, and impairments in order to establish and improve participation for all.

Martin Butler is Professor of American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. His research centers on popular culture and its mobilities, with a particular focus on popular music in a range of different historical and regional contexts. He is also interested in cultural representations of migration and diversity and in cultures of participation, specifically in new media environments.

Affiliation: School of Educational and Social Sciences, University of Oldenburg

Academic Focus

• Research Methods
• Multiprofessional Cooperation
• School Absenteeism
• Cooperation Youth Welfare Services and Schools
• Participation and Service Learning
• Higher Education Research
• Research-based Learning

Tina Grummel, Project manager, University of Oldenburg, Germany

Prof. Heloise Sathorar is Acting Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Nelson Mandela University. She is also the Head of Department for Secondary School Education (PGCE and BEd SP & FET) in the Faculty of Education. Her research interest includes critical pedagogy, teacher education, higher education and critical community engagement. She has also done research in Accounting Education, and Entrepreneurship Education. Her most recent work is: Decolonizing the colonized mindset: Reflecting on lecturer dispositions to decolonize teacher education (JOE).

Prof Marije Michel is chair of Language Learning within the Department of European Languages and Cultures (ELC) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Born and raised in Switzerland by Dutch parents, she studied Dutch and German at Utrecht University and the Free University Berlin. In 2011 she defended her PhD thesis at the University of Amsterdam based on a research project focusing on Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch as a second language (L2). After a teaching fellowship at Tubingen University and a postdoc at Mannheim University, Marije moved to the UK where she became a lecturer for L2 learning and teaching at Lancaster University. In 2018, Marije joined the University of Groningen where she now supervises the teaching of eight languages taught within the ELC programme: Dutch, German, English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

Marije's research and teaching focuses on cognitive and interactive aspects of second language acquisition and task-based language pedagogy. Her recent work looks into teaching material and task design; uses eye-tracking to investigate cognitive processes of L2 writing, in particular, in digital contexts (e.g., text chat); and examines student motivation to learn other languages than English (LOTE), specifically German and French in the Netherlands.

Nadia Gerritsen is a Teacher Educator of English Foreign Language learning at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She specializes in the application of intercultural competence and engagement theories in the EFL classroom. Her research interests include promoting linguistic and cultural diversity in teacher education and language classrooms. 

Robert-Jan Smit (M.Ed.) is a teacher educator in the teacher trainer programme bachelor and master of English, at the Dutch NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (Leeuwarden/Groningen). The subjects he teaches range from Arts in Context to Applied Linguistics, and from Discourse Analysis to Teaching Writing. He also supervises bachelor theses. Robert-Jan has 21 years of experience teaching English at a Dutch secondary school. Of those 21 years, 15 were spent teaching and developing the subject of English within the framework of the International Baccalaureate’s Middle Years Programme (IB-MYP) in the bilingual department. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is a field of strong interest.