Founding members

Ulrike Jessner-Schmid

… is an associate professor at the University of Innsbruck and head of DYME. More information is available on her personal homepage.

She is one of the pioneers of Dynamic Systems Theory in the field of multilingualism and foreign language acquisition, and co-author of the book A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism: Perspectives on Change in Psycholinguistics (Herdina & Jessner, 2002; Multilingual Matters), and author of Linguistic Awareness of Multilinguals: English as a Third Language for which she won the Liechtensteinpreis in 2007. She has researched and published extensively in the areas of second language acquisition, third language acquisition, bi/multilingualism, and until 2014 she was president of the International Association of Multilingualism.

Philip Herdina

... is an assistant professor at the Department of English, teaches and researches applied linguistics, grammar and multilingualism. His current projects focus on cognitive semantics and complexity theory. He is co-author of the Dictionary of Philosophical Terms.
Click here for his personal homepage.

Elisabeth Allgäuer-Hackl

... had to become multilingual to survive in the Nicaragua and Colombia of the 1980s, after arriving there knowing only English, German and French. She is a teacher and is active in continuing/in-service training for teachers with a focus on multilingualism (in particular in cooperation with the integration project okay-zusammenleben) and has taught a seminar on multilingual didactics in theory and practice at the University of Innsbruck for several semesters. She has played an active role in the establishment and development of language competence centers (e.g. SpEAK at the PI Feldkirch, language center of the VHS Götzis), and has also been involved in several Comenius and Erasmus projects.
Current focus: education and in-service teacher training, development of plurilingual curricula (Project PlurCur at the European Centre for Modern Languages – Graz; Plur>E as an Erasmus+ project), multilingual didactics.
Dissertation (in progress): Multilingual training at school: Does it enhance language proficiency and metalinguistic awareness in multilingual learners?
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Valentina Török

... spent the first 18 years of her life in an area where being bi/multilingual is more the rule than an exception. Not until she moved to a predominantly monolingual region did she realize that in some areas being multilingual is perceived as something out of the ordinary.
After graduating with highest honors in English and American studies (see her published thesis here), Valentina joined the DYME team as a researcher in 2011.
Dissertation (completed 5/2017): Awareness and Consciousness in Multilingual Learners’ Strategies: Approaching the M-Factor
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Manon Megens

… grew up in the Netherlands. After graduating with highest honors in International Cultural Management and Art Education in Utrecht, Manon moved to Innsbruck, where she is currently curator of communication and art education in the Galerie im Taxispalais and an external lecturer at the department for architectural theory of Innsbruck University.

Manon completed her degree in English and American studies with highest honors in June of 2011. She is now a PhD student in applied linguistics and English studies, head of the XLAPMA project (crosslinguistic awareness in processes of multilingual attrition) and specializes in the fields of multilingualism/third language acquisition and language attrition research.

Recipient of a doctoral stipend from the University of Innsbruck

Doctoral dissertation (in progress): Crosslinguistic awareness in processes of multilingual attrition

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Kathrin Oberhofer

... grew up speaking two languages and has been interested in multilingualism ever since she realized that many other children (and their toys) only spoke one.

From 2011 to 2013, she was project manager and a researcher at the LAILA project, and was involved in data analysis and research. She completed her PhD in English and applied in linguistics with highest honors at the end of 2014. Her doctoral dissertation was based on the MAYLL project, a study involving over 100 pre-school aged children in four cities. The project was created and carried out by Kathrin and supported by the Tyrolean Science Fund (TWF)

PhD (doctor philosophiae) graduated in January 2015.

Doctoral dissertation (completed 2014): Metalinguistic Abilities in Young Language Learners. A longitudinal study on the development of metalinguistic abilities and executive function in early foreign language learners (children enrolled in bilingual or English-immersion preschools) vs. in children in monolingual preschools

Recipient of a doctoral stipend from the University of Innsbruck in 2013.

Recipient of the Würdigungspreis 2008 des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaft und Forschung (an award of excellence given to the 50 best university graduates in Austria by the Federal Ministry of Education and Science).