Assistant Professor

Robert has a doctorate in Applied Linguistics from Macquarie University and won the 2012 Jacqueline Ross dissertation award. He has been teaching English and training English teachers around the world since 1996. He is also a graduate of the WASC Assessment Leadership Academy, focusing on higher education assessment and accreditation. He joined UCQ in 2011 and teaches English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Academic Writing, and Statistics in the Foundations, Bachelors, and Masters Program.

Robert is an active researcher, having published several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Recently, he has been PI and co-PI on a series of studies investigating communication and miscommunication in healthcare contexts in which speakers of different languages use English to communicate. This has led to publications coining the term, and proposing research directions for, Medical English as a Lingua Franca. Robert also frequently publishes in the area of language testing and test validity. In a recent publication, he and his co-author found EAP course results were better predictors (and therefore, likely more useful indicators) of student success in academic programs than widely used standardized tests, including the IELTS and TOEFL.