Bernardino
Cardoso Tavares is a doctoral researcher at the University of
Luxembourg in the STAR project. He grew up in Cape Verde, where he attended a
teacher training school. In 2006, he moved to Coimbra, Portugal, to continue
his studies. He obtained a B.A. degree in Modern Languages (French and English)
and an M.A. in Anglo-American Studies with a focus on creole linguistics. The
greatest share of his career has been dedicated to the teaching of English as a
foreign language, especially at high school level (in Cape Verde and Portugal).
Before moving to Luxembourg, he worked at the University of Cape Verde (UNICV)
as a lecturer in English for specific purposes. As a West African migrant
in Europe himself, Bernardino has a strong personal interest in researching
sociolinguistic aspects of migration between Africa and
Europe.
Kasper
Juffermans is a sociolinguist and Africanist at the University
of Luxembourg and the PI of the STAR project. He grew up as a 1.5 generation
immigrant from the Netherlands in Flanders (Belgium) and currently shuttles
between the French-Luxembourgish and the Dutch-Belgian borders when he's not in
West Africa for fieldwork. Before coming to the Grand Duchy in 2012, Kasper
studied African studies at
Ghent University in Belgium and English at the University of Hong Kong and held
doctoral and postdoctoral positions at Tilburg
University and the University of Hamburg. He
has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in urban and rural Gambia, with a focus on
social aspects of literacy and multilingualism. After working on Chinese
complementary education as a member of a European research team, the STAR project allows him to
return to African studies and investigate actual and aspired/planned mobilities
between Africa and Europe. In Luxembourg, Kasper also teaches in the trilingual MA
programme Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural
Contexts.
Jurdana
Martin is a student in the Master in Learning and
Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts at the University of
Luxembourg and a student assistant in the STAR project. Originally from the
Basque Country, Jurdana has been living in different countries since she
started her BA in English Philology at the University of the Basque Country.
She has spent a year at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales, where she got
interested in the ideas of bilingual education and practices. After that,
Jurdana went back home to teach Basque to young people and adults. In 2013, she
received a grant for an internship in a high school in Iceland as a Spanish
assistant teacher.
Reinaldo Alfredo Natcha will
be working in the STAR project as a research assistant for the fieldwork in
Bissau. He is an English language teachers with about six years experience in
public and private schools around Bissau. This year he is graduating from the teacher
training college Tchico-Té where he served as vice-president of
the student union. He also has experience as a private language tutor of
Portuguese, Kriyol and English for foreigners and has worked as a field
research assistant and translator for a project on marine species conservation
in the Bijago Islands. He has travelled to China on three occasions to
participate in international training courses and seminars on educational
management and teaching methodology. Reinaldo is multilingual in Balanta,
Kriyol, Fula, Portuguese, English and French, and is interested in American and
African history and political speeches and motivational speaking.
The following persons, internationally renowned experts in Lusophone and African sociolinguistics and anthropology, have kindly agreed to be part of an informal advisory group: Karel Arnaut (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Lorenzo Bordonaro (Instituto Universitario de Lisboa), Cécile Canut (Université Paris-Descartes - mentor abroad), João Ribeiro Có (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas da Guinea-Bissau), Branca Falabella Fabrício (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro), Clementina Furtado (Universidade de Cabo Verde), Adelheid Hu (University of Luxembourg - local supervisor), Friederike Lüpke (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Marilyn Martin-Jones (University of Birmingham), Sarita Monjane Henriksen (Universidade Pedagógica Maputo) and Christopher Stroud (University of the Western Cape).
