Who We Are

Ulla Connor, Ph.D. is the Barbara E. and Karl R. Zimmer Chair in Intercultural Communication, Chancellor’s Professor of English, and Director of the International Center for Intercultural Communication at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis.

Dr. Connor received her B.A. and M.A. in English philology from the University of Helsinki, an M.A. in English literature from the University of Florida, an M.A. in comparative literature and Ph.D. in English linguistics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Connor has held academic positions at the University of Florida, University of Wisconsin, George Mason University, Georgetown University, Purdue University, and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She has also held guest and visiting professor positions in linguistics and applied linguistics with Temple University in Japan, Lund University in Sweden, Åbo Akademi University in Finland, and Leon University in Spain. She is an elected foreign member of Societas Scientiarum Fennica (Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters).

Dr. Connor has authored and co-authored 10 books and over 100 articles and book chapters, including Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing (Cambridge U. P., 1996), and Intercultural Rhetoric in the Writing Classroom (U. of Michigan P., 2012). In her research on writing and intercultural communication, Dr. Connor combines theories and methods from both linguistics, classical rhetoric, and psychology. Results of her intercultural research have been applied in ESL and EFL, intercultural business communication, and, most recently, the language of health care among U.S. immigrant populations. This research focuses on the language use between health care providers and chronically ill patients, including patients diagnosed with addictions. She is the Chief Scientific Officer for CoMac Analytics, Inc.

Matthew Hume is the Director of Educational Programs for the International Center for Intercultural Communication at IUPUI. Matthew received his MA in TESOL from IUPUI, and he holds a BA from Yale University. He has taught English for Academic Purposes at Peking University Health Science Center in Beijing, and he has served as associate faculty in the Program for Intensive English (PIE) at IUPUI. An advocate for community access to English, he has worked as a facilitator in the Indianapolis Public Library’s English Conversation Circle program, and he continues to work with community partners to expand workplace English opportunities in central Indiana.Matthew’s work with ICIC focuses on department research and educational offerings, and includes grant writing, instructional development and teaching, and strategic planning. He has presented classroom-based ESP research as well as research into international recruitment at conferences locally and internationally, including COMET, INTESOL, and TESOL. His interests outside of TESOL and ESP include magazine writing, choral singing, and the Great American Songbook.

Ginger Kosobucki is the English Learning Director at Immigrant Welcome Center in Indianapolis, where her work focuses on creating more opportunities for English language learning for immigrants in their workplaces and communities and supporting the local ENL/ESOL community. A special focus of her work is developing the Pathway to Literacy program for immigrants with limited formal schooling and beginning literacy skills. She has been a language teacher for over 20 years. After earning her BA in French, she taught foreign languages in K-12 schools in Vermont, and EFL to Polish high school students. After earning her MA in English/TESOL Concentration, she taught international students in an Intensive English Program in Indianapolis. In 2019, she led a research team to discover the barriers facing immigrants for learning English, and in 2020 she led the Pathway to Literacy team in developing curriculum, assessment, and classes for beginning learners. She has lived in Norway, France, Bolivia and Poland, and is a lifelong language learner. She’s glad to serve as the Community Liaison for the International Center for Intercultural Communication.

Miriam is an undergraduate senior from IU Bloomington majoring in International Law, Spanish Linguistics, and Russian. She joined ICIC in January as an administrative assistant for the center and her duties include planning conferences, managing social media and the online newsletter, and providing administrative support for the center. She will graduate from IU in May and begin her graduate studies in the M.A. TESOL program at IUPUI in the fall.