Third Space: People

Third Space Lab Co-Directors

Emmanuelle Sarah Chiocca, Ph.D.

Dr. Emmanuelle S. Chiocca

Assistant Professor of Language and Culture, Language and Culture Center
she/her/hers

Emmanuelle Chiocca earned two BAs in History and in English from the Université of Bordeaux-Montaigne (France), and her Ph.D. in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum from the University of Oklahoma (2018). Before joining DKU, Dr. Chiocca taught at the University of Oklahoma in the US, at the Sorbonne Université of Paris Nord, in a high-security facility, and in prep schools in France. She specializes in the investigation of learning experiences that result in perspective transformation and intercultural competence development in international educational contexts. She has presented her research on transformative learning, language and intercultural teaching and learning, and international education at various international conferences, including the International Academy for Intercultural Research, the International Association for Intercultural Education, and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research, and the American Psychological Association. Her latest work, “Talking with ‘Others’: Experiences and perspective transformation in a short-term study abroad program” was published in May 2021 in Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. She is currently working on a manuscript on the experiences of students with video eTandem in an elementary languaculture course, co-writing a piece with Dr. Zhang Xin on the motivation of international students to attend joint-venture universities in China,  and co-leading with Dr. Stephanie Anderson (and their respective students) an interdisciplinary, multilingual, and multimodal project on stories for children. 

Xin Zhang, Ph.D.

Dr. Zhang Xin

Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Intercultural Communication, Language and Culture Center

Xin Zhang received her M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literature (2016) from the Ohio State University. In 2016-19, she held an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship and served as a visiting assistant professor of Chinese at Oberlin College. Dr. Zhang specializes in second language acquisition, language pedagogy, and intercultural communication manifested in language teaching, program building, and teacher training. She has directed intensive study-abroad Chinese programs including the Critical Language Scholarship program, and has received several awards for her projects from Chinese Language Teachers Association (USA), Five Colleges of Ohio Consortium, National Federation of Modern Language Teachers’ Association and National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. Dr. Zhang recently co-edited a volume with Routledge, entitled Third Space and Chinese Pedagogy: Negotiating Intentions and Expectations in Another Culture (2021). She is currently writing her book A Pedagogy of Target Culture Expectation.

Affiliated Faculty

Stephanie Anderson

Dr. Stephanie Anderson

Stephanie Anderson is the author of three books of poems, most recently If You Love Error So Love Zero, and the co-editor of All This Thinking: The Correspondence of Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge (forthcoming, University of New Mexico Press). Her latest scholarly work appears in Momentous Inconclusions: The Life and Work of Larry Eigner, LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of American Literature and founding editor of Projective Industries. She is currently co-leading a multilingual project on writing stories for children through the Third Space Lab.

Affiliated Students

Wenxin Dong

Wenxin Dong

Wenxin Dong is a DKU undergraduate student from the class of 2026 who intend to major in Media & Art. She is working as an illustrator on the program of writing stories for children under Dr. Emma Chiocca and Dr. Stephanie Anderson. Being a literature lover, she also realize the power of children’s books that can build proper views. Beside this, she had always been empathetic and caring, and can always get on well with children. She believes TSL is a great platform for her to accomplish self-actualization and is more than delighted to join the Third Space Lab in her freshman year. Eager to devote to the project, she is ready to communicate and collaborate, and to explore more career paths from the working experiences here at TSL. She is currently working on a Translingual project with Prof Emma Chiocca and Prof Stephanie Anderson with Third Space Lab.

Jiayi He

Jiayi He

Jiayi He is a DKU undergraduate student from the class of 2024. She majors in Media and Arts with a track in Art History. She is delighted to have this opportunity to work as a digital media assistant on the project Multilingual Stories. She is passionate about presenting those appealing stories that students wrote to the audience, as this both gives students more acknowledgments and brings much joy to the audience. In this position, she hopes to make the most of what she has learned in previous classes and apply that knowledge to practice. She is also aspired to learn from others while working with them and accumulate experiences for her  future research and career.

Zhixin Gu

Zhixin Gu

Zhixin Gu is a DKU undergraduate student from the Class of 2023 majoring in Media & Art (creative practice track). She is working as a Digital Media Assistant with Third Space Lab on the project which involves creating an “anthology” of short stories for children in multiple languages under Dr. Emma Chiocca and Dr. Stephanie Anderson. As a second language learner, she finds that reading children’s stories in different languages is very helpful for language learning. In addition, She has a strong interest in children-related fields. With the support of DKU Innovation Incubator, she created an innovative project that aims to use storybooks as a bridge to help parents communicate better with their children. She is very excited to be part of this Third Space Lab interdisciplinary project that combines multiple languages with an anthology of short stories for children. It miraculously fits great with her passion for different research fields.

Xueyan Liu

Xueyan Liu

Xueyan Liu is an undergraduate student of DKU from the class of 2024, majoring in Media & Art (Creative practice track). She is now working as an illustrator with Third Space Lab on the project of creating short stories for children in multiple languages under Dr. Emma Chiocca and Dr. Stephanie Anderson. As a painter, she found her interest in digital illustrating and usually posts her illustrations on social media. She loves using visual language to tell stories, creating original illustrations based on stories and imagination. She is excited to be the illustrators of Third Space Lab creating illustrations based short stories for children and use illustrations fulfilling the stories in return. She is currently working on a Translingual project with Prof Emma Chiocca and Prof Stephanie Anderson with Third Space Lab.

Josh Manto

Josh Manto

Josh Manto is a junior majoring in Data Science. He is pursuing his research and linguistic interests in the Chinese language as a Research Assistant with the DKU Third Space Lab. He is also a trilingual and language-lover, holding language proficiencies in English, Filipino, and Chinese.

Shutong Zhang

Shutong Zhang

Shutong Zhang is a DKU undergraduate student from the class of 2025, majoring in Media and Art (creative practice track). She cherishes the opportunity of participating as an illustrator in the project of creating an “anthology” of short stories for children in multiple languages. Through her mastery of painting, she hopes to present the iridescent fantasy world of what she perceived from the stories. Moreover, she hopes to bring out inspiration through collaboration with other members and create a better reading experience for the audience. She is currently working on a Translingual project with Prof Emma Chiocca and Prof Stephanie Anderson with Third Space Lab.