TEAM
Osman Solmaz (Ph.D) was the director, who was mainly responsible for implementing the project. He conducted a part of his Masters’ thesis research at SUNY Albany, New York as a visiting scholar, and received his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from an interdisciplinary graduate program at the University of Arizona thanks to Fulbright scholarship. He currently works as assistant professor of English Language Teaching at his alma-mater, Dicle University, where he has engaged in a number of academic and community service projects. Among his research interests are computer assisted language learning, language teacher education, digital literacies, and linguistic landscapes.
Steve Przymus (Ph.D.), the assistant director, is an Assistant Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education in the College of Education at Texas Christian University (TCU). As a faculty member of the TCU Discovering Global Citizenship Committee, Przymus works across disciplinary initiatives to promote global education at TCU. As a Return Peace Corps Volunteer (Dominican Republic, 2003-2005), a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching grantee (Mexico, 2010), and faculty supervisor of study abroad programs in Spain, Panamá, and México, Dr. Przymus has gained valuable experience working with international partners. Dr. Przymus publishes peer-review research articles in the fields of bilingual education, computer assisted language learning, bilingual special education, identity, and linguistic landscapes.
İbrahim Özkaya is a teacher of English at a state school in Ergani, Diyarbakır, Turkey. He studied at the Cinema and Television department at Anadolu University before starting to study at the Department of English Language Teaching at Dicle University in Diyarbakır. He graduated from the program in a record 3 years while maintaining the highest GPA among the graduates in his year. He contributed to the project through some of the skills including photography, video creation and making. He has experience in working with secondary and high school students as well adults, engagement in community services, and active networking within pre-service and in-service teachers of English.