Marcela Lemos, Ph.D.

Hello there! I’m Dr. Marcela Lemos, Assistant Professor of Portuguese at Utah State University. I’m passionate about language and communication, literature, cultural studies, second language pedagogies, and applied linguistics. Here you’ll find information about my research, teaching, and service.

My doctoral dissertation investigates the roles of ekphrastic photography in contemporary prose literature about the memory of the Brazilian and Argentine military dictatorships. My work in Second Language Pedagogies focuses on Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), Business Language Studies, and Translation Studies to design, implement, and teach a task-based courses in Portuguese, Portuguese for Special Purposes, and Luso-Afro-Brazilian literatures and cultures. 

My teaching practice puts together my research interests and pedagogical approach as my Portuguese and Spanish students interact with literary texts appropriate to their proficiency and perform language tasks that cater to various learning levels, from novice to advanced. My teaching philosophy fosters empathetic relationships between students and the new cultures, while also encouraging engagement with sociopolitical issues and promoting cultural knowledge. In addition to teaching language and culture, I have experience in leading a graduate student professionalization workshop series to provide career mentorship at the different stages of academic training.

My research and teaching have been recognized through publications in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Lusophone Studies, Hispania and Spanish and Portuguese Review, and acknowledged by awards, such as the Latino Studies Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Dr. William Slaymaker Graduate Fellowship, the HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory) Scholarship, the Tinker Field Research Grant, and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) Rising Star Teacher of the Year and First-Place Graduate Student Day Competition.

Feel free to explore this website. You may also download my CV and contact me for further information.