Abir Ward

Born in Monrovia, Liberia to Lebanese parents, I grew up there before leaving California where I spent my late teens and twenties. I consider myself multinational in addition to being multilingual. I love learning languages like I love learning how to play musical instruments: Enough to know how they operate. 

I teach academic writing, communication skills, and technical English for engineering at the American University of Beirut (AUB), and I am the lead editor of Pages Apart, an academic reader used for teaching English at AUB. Besides training MBA students in public speaking and communication skills at the Olayan School of Business (AUB), I teach English for international business and executive communication at the Executive Masters for Business Administration (EMBA) program. I have over fourteen years of experience teaching English at the university level, and I give workshops in science writing to science researchers at the Center of Reacher Institute at the American University of Beirut Medical Center and at the Hariri School of Nursing. I also give workshops in business English at various companies in Lebanon and the Middle East.

Before going for my PhD, I used to work as an editor and translator in addition to teaching first-year composition classes and world literature at the Lebanese American University. 

I am a PhD candidate in Composition and Applied Linguistics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and I will defend my dissertation in November, 2021. My dissertation is on the literacy and publishing practices of multilingual science researchers and the issues of linguistic injustice. I also have an MA in comparative literature (Arabic/English) from the Lebanese American University and a BA in English from San Jose State University.