The Center for Language Acquisition presents Paula Winke (Michigan State University), who will deliver her presentation, “”Why and how to customize 'Can-do' based self-assessments for less-commonly-taught-language (LCTL) programs: Spoiler alert: to align task-based formative assessments with learning objectives, LCTL textbook-content, national standards, and student motivation.“

Paula Winke is the inaugural "Arts and Letters" Professor at Michigan State University, where she teaches and researches language assessment. She was the co-editor of the international journal Language Testing 2019–2024. She has received numerous awards, including the 2026 Alan Davies lecture award from the British Council, the 2025 Best Article Award from the International Language Testing Association, the 2021 Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in World Language Education from the National Federation of Modern Language Teacher Associations and the Modern Language Journal, the 2020 American Association of Applied Linguistics Research Award, and the 2012 International TESOL Award for Distinguished Research. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (China, 1998–2000), a two-time Fulbright Scholar (Budapest, Hungary, 2008; Leipzig, Germany, 2022), and served on a language testing consensus committee in Washington, D.C. at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018–2020. She is currently the treasurer of the American Association of Applied Linguistics and is an academic advisor to Cambridge University Press and Assessment, United Kingdom.