Dr. Olesya Kisselev is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of South Carolina, following her appointment as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies (2018-2023), where she received many accolades for her research and teaching including the prestigious University Excellence Award: President’s Distinguished Achievement Award in Research Excellence.

Her primary research expertise lies in the area of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis, especially as they apply to the study of various aspects of bi/multilingualism and diasporic language practices, as well as second and heritage language development and maintenance. Her scholarly contributions include research papers, book chapters, and edited volumes on linguistic aspects of second and heritage languages and language pedagogy. Dr. Kisselev has a record of funded research; she currently serves as the Co-Director for the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER) and the Director of the STARTALK Institute for Teachers: Proficiency-Based Pedagogy for Russian at the Middlebury College.

Kisselev completed her Ph.D. (2018) at The Pennsylvania State University in the Department of Applied Linguistics. Her dissertation titled Word order and information structure in the writing of heritage and second language learners of Russian won the prestigious NFMLTA/NCOLCTL Dissertation Support Grant.