Research/Career Interests:
Elizabeth Root (PhD, University of New Mexico) began her career as an English as a second/foreign language teacher. Besides teaching refugees, immigrants, and international students in Minnesota, she also taught conversational English classes in both China and South Korea for several years. Her experience working with international students prompted her to return to graduate school to study intercultural communication. Research during her PhD program took her back to South Korea to collect narrative data exploring the intercultural relationships between native-English-speaking teachers and Korean students in a classroom setting. Currently, as an associate professor in Speech Communication, Elizabeth teaches courses in intercultural communication and qualitative research methods. Her research focuses on issues of university internationalization, cultural identity, and intercultural communication pedagogy.