About Our Authors

Betty Lou Leaver (Ph.D., Pushkin Institute, Moscow) is Director of The Literary Center of San Juan Bautista and previously served as provost, associate provost, and dean at the Defense Language Institute. She established an international language program at NASA for cosmonauts and astronauts assigned to the International Space Station; served as a language training supervisor at the Foreign Service Institute, curriculum developer for the Federal Foreign Language Training Lab, dean and chief academic officer at the New York Institute of Technology in Jordan, president of the American Global Studies Institute, co-director of the Center for the Advancement of Distinguished Language Proficiency at San Diego State University, and founding director of the Center for the Languages of the Central Asian Region at Indiana University; and provided consultation to educational programs in 24 countries. She has published 21 books, more than 100 articles, and recently co-edited a book, Transformative Language Learning and Teaching, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021, which earned two national honors (AATSEEL Best Pedagogy Book, and Modern Language Association’s Kenneth W. Mildenberger Bes:  Book in Language Education. Currently, she has co-edited a book, Open Architecture Curricular Design in World Language Education, to be released by Georgetown University Press in July 2025.

In addition to serving as managing editor at MSI Press, where she also copy-edits upon occasion and makes decisions about book acquisitions, she serves on the advisory board for Georgetown University Press, which published two of her books in past years (in addition to the current book).

Listen to a podcast where she discusses her thoughts about teaching methods and learners: How Personalities Influence Second Language Acquisition (American Council of Teachers of Russian).

Watch a video on transformative language learning: Emilie Cleret and Betty Lou Leaver (International Language Transformative Learning Association).