Anita Pandey
Anita Pandey is professor of linguistics and coordinator of professional communication in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University. Over the past 22 years, she has taught courses in linguistics, ESL, and business and technical writing.
Born and raised in a bilingual home in Africa, she is fluent in French, Hindi/Urdu, Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba, and Spanish. During her early years, her family was constantly on the move, so she was forced to skip grades 5 through 8 because English-medium schools were not as accessible. After being home-schooled for a brief period, she entered high school at age 9 and successfully passed the regional West African Examination Council’s exit exam (like the SAT) at 13. She gained admission into a 2-year college of arts and sciences the following year, and completed her Bachelor’s by age 19. She earned a BA (Hons.) with a 1st Class distinction in linguistics from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Nigeria), and taught at the College of Education, Azare (Nigeria) before pursuing graduate studies. She received her doctorate in linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds two master’s degrees (the 1st in TESOL).
Dr. Pandey was the principal investigator for a large grant from the Administration for Children and Families for a linguistically enhanced training program for ECE professionals. She has participated in and presented at various professional venues, including the NAEYC, IRA, Head Start’s National Research Conference, Head Start Grantees’ Conference, Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI), TESOL, the American Association for Applied Linguistics, NABE, the International Society for Language Studies, the International Conference on World Englishes, the International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning, Georgetown University’s Roundtable on Linguistics, and NCTE. All together, she has presented at over 60 international conventions. She is on ACEI’s Research and Technical Assistance committees and is working on initiating a forum on increased access to elementary education worldwide. She also serves as education advisor for The UNForgotten Fund (www.unforgotten.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating homeless children who sell trash for a living in Africa and Southest Asia.
Her research interests include dual language and literacy development, transdisciplinary linguistics, and professional communication. In 2000, she served as lead ontologist for two companies in Silicon Valley, California. This laid the groundwork for her work in professional communication. She was a featured speaker at the 22nd Penn State Conference on Translingual Writing and her presentation is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming volume from Routledge. She has also been invited to speak at the 2012 Intercultural Communication Conference hosted by Indiana University, and the 2013 NABE Convention.
Dr. Pandey’s research has appeared in Childhood Education, TESOL Quarterly, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Africa Today, Business Communication Quarterly, and Knowledge Management. She guest edited the millennium issue of World Englishes (London: Blackwell). Her research monograph, The Child Language Teacher: Intergenerational Language and Literary Enhancement (Central Institute of Indian Languages), proposes an innovative approach to community language and literacy. She is associate editor of the Journal of English as an International Language and guest editor of the 2011 and 2012 issues of the International Journal of Communication. She is also on the advisory boards of four international journals.
