CARLA Fellow Program
The CARLA Fellow Program is designed to recognize and support the outstanding contributions of graduate students at the University of Minnesota in the area of second language learning and/or teaching, and to engage graduate students in the work being done at CARLA. Each year, up to two University of Minnesota doctoral students are selected as CARLA Fellows. The awardees receive a $1,000 reimbursement allowance for travel to attend or present at a language-related conference and are invited to give a CARLA Presentation during the academic year.
CARLA Fellow 2025-2026
CARLA is pleased to announce the selection of the CARLA Fellow for the 2025–2026 academic year: Mohammad Naghavian. Mohammad is an advanced doctoral student whose interests in foreign language learning and teaching help support CARLA's mission to "study multilingualism and multiculturalism, to develop knowledge of second language acquisition, and to advance the quality of second language teaching, learning, and assessment."
Mohammad Naghavian is a PhD student in Multilingual Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. His current research interests include speaking fluency, learner and teacher beliefs, translanguaging, metaphor analysis, and phenomenology. He earned both his BA and MA in English Language Teaching (ELT) in Iran. His research has been published in The Modern Language Journal. His involvement with CARLA includes a presentation on a project titled From Somali Lullabies to Language Survival in the Diaspora: A Project in Culture and Language Learning and Teaching, which was funded by the CARLA Summer Graduate Research Assistant Competition in Summer 2025.
Check out Mohammad's CARLA Fellow Presentation to be given in the the spring:
CARLA FELLOW PRESENTATION:
Translanguaging in Assessment: A Phenomenological Inquiry into EAP Students’ Lived Experiences
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
12:00–1:00 p.m. (Central Time)
Learn more and register.
Using a phenomenological approach, this study explored English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students’ lived experience of translanguaging during formal assessments. The guiding question was: How do EAP students use and experience translanguaging in exams? Participants were 20 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) undergraduates in an English Language Teaching program in Iran who had engaged with translanguaging throughout a subject-specific course and were allowed to draw on their full linguistic repertoire in the final exam. Data consisted of lived-experience descriptions, elicited metaphors, and follow-up interviews. Preliminary findings suggest that translanguaging in assessment was not a stable or uniform strategy; instead, it emerged through students’ shifting relationships with their languages, their emotions, institutional expectations, and broader language ideologies.
Presenter: Mohammad Naghavian (see bio above).
CARLA Fellows (1996–Present)
2025–2026:
Mohammad Naghavian (Multilingual Education/PhD)
2024–2025:
Perla Escobar-Faerber (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2023–2024:
Leiry Warren (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2022–2023:
Darren LaScotte (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Marie Mangold (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2020–2021:
Vivian H. Franco Díaz (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
Amanda Swearingen (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2019–2020:
Leah Shepard-Carey (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Lauren Truman (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2018–2019:
Mónica de la Fuente Iglesias (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
Russell Simonsen (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2017–2018:
Yi-Ju Lai (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Corinne Mathieu (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD.
2016–2017:
Jenna Cushing-Leubner (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Mel Engman (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Jenifer Vanek (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2014–2015:
LeeAnne Godfrey (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Beth Dillard (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2013–2014:
Fang (Andie) Wang (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Amy Young (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2012–2013:
Angela George (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2011–2012:
Angela Pinilla-Herrera (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2010–2011:
Sachiko Horii (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2009–2010:
Giang Thùy Pham (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences/PhD)
2008–2009:
Mandy Menke (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2007–2008:
Pam Wesely (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2006–2007:
Karla Stone (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2005–2006:
Laurent Cammarata (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2004–2005:
Anne Dahlman (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2003–2004:
Lisa McCowen (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
2002–2003:
Karen Jorgensen (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Paul Magnuson (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
2001–2002:
Mike Anderson (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
Jenny Yi-chun Kuo (Linguistics/PhD)
2000–2001:
J. Cesar Felix-Brasdefer (Hispanic Linguistics/PhD)
Tara Fortune (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
1999–2000:
Patsy Vinogradov (ESL/MA)
Bonnie Swierzbin (Linguistics/PhD)
1998–1999:
Karin Goettsch (ESL/MA)
Francine Klein (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)
John Skinner (ESL/MA)
1997–1998:
Andreas Schramm (Linguistics/PhD)
Nima Salehi (ESL/MA)
1996–1997:
Karen Lybeck (Linguistics/ PhD)
Patricia Mougel (Second Languages and Cultures Education/PhD)