Amy S. Thompson, the Mack and Effie Campbell Distinguished Professor and director of the School of Teacher Education at Florida State University, has received the 2024 Distinguished Service to the Profession Award from the Association of Language Departments, a part of the Modern Language Association. The award recognizes scholars who have made outstanding contributions to the profession at the postsecondary level.
Dr. Thompson joined the Florida State faculty last year. Prior to her current role, she spent six years with West Virginia University as the Woodburn Professor of Applied Linguistics, chair of the department of world languages, literatures, and linguistics, co-director of the English Language Learning Institute, and director of international relations and strategic planning in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. Earlier, she spent nine years on the faculty at the University of South Florida.
As a scholar of multilingual education, Dr. Thompson’s research focuses on individual differences in second language acquisition, language learning in anglophone contexts, and other variables regarding language learning, teaching, and leadership in academia. She has published extensively in the fields of teacher education and foreign language learning, including her book, The Role of Context in Language Teachers’ Self Development and Motivation: Perspectives From Multilingual Settings (Multilingual Matters, 2021).
Dr. Thompson is a magna cum laude graduate of Texas Christian University, where she majored in French with minors in art and deaf habilitation. She holds a master’s degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages and a Ph.D. in second language studies from Michigan State University.