Researcher · Educator · Theorist
Charting new territories at the intersection of AI, language education, and evidence-informed practice — drawing on sociocultural theory to illuminate how humans learn, adapt, and grow.
01 · About
I am an applied linguist and educational researcher whose work spans language education, AI in learning, teacher professional development, and evidence synthesis for policy.
Based between Vietnam and Australia, I bring a deeply cross-cultural lens to questions about how people learn languages, how teachers exercise agency in complex environments, and how knowledge — especially AI-generated knowledge — must be critically evaluated before shaping policy and practice.
My work is grounded in Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, which I use as a living intellectual framework to understand how emotion, cognition, and social context interweave in human development — and increasingly, in human–AI interaction.
I believe rigorous scholarship must reach beyond the academy — to classrooms, to policymakers, and to the people whose lives depend on good evidence.
02 · Impact
03 · Research Themes
How AI tools reshape learning, critical thinking, and academic integrity — and how educators should respond. My work introduces new frameworks including Human–AI Distributed Critical Thinking (HADCT) and EIPP-CT to guide responsible, critically-informed AI integration.
How teachers exercise professional agency amid reform, uncertainty, and institutional constraint. Through systematic reviews and empirical studies, I map the internal capacities and contextual conditions that enable teachers to shape their own practice and professional growth.
Sustained theoretical work on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory — including emotion–cognition relations, perezhivanie, and the ZPD — alongside the activity theories of Leontiev and Engeström. My goal: clarify foundational concepts and reveal their living relevance for today's educational challenges.
Language learning in Vietnamese and global EFL contexts — portfolio-based instruction, translanguaging, L2 vocabulary growth, and scale validation. Connecting classroom realities to broader theories of language acquisition, identity, and motivation.
Systematic and rapid reviews as tools for real-world policy and practice. My postdoctoral work at Monash deepens a commitment to bridging rigorous research and decision-making — ensuring evidence reaches the people who need it most.
04 · Knowledge Map
05 · Vision
"Good research doesn't just describe the world — it reorients how we see it, making new kinds of action possible."
I am driven by a conviction that scholarship must serve people — students navigating AI-mediated classrooms, teachers seeking to act with agency, and policymakers who need evidence they can trust. My work reaches toward a future where the power of rigorous inquiry is shared widely, where critical thinking is not a luxury but a democratic practice, and where the complexity of human experience is never reduced to an algorithm.
06 · Connect
I welcome connections with fellow researchers, graduate students, educators, and policymakers who share an interest in AI in education, language learning, teacher development, or evidence synthesis.
Whether you're seeking a research collaborator, a conference speaker, or simply a conversation about ideas at the edge of the field — I would be glad to hear from you.
For my full list of publications, visit Publications →