Professor Xun Yan of the Department of Linguistics is among U of I six assistant professors that have been recognized as Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholars for their contributions and potential in teaching and research.
The LEAP Award is granted to faculty early in their career based on scholarly productivity and contributions to the educational mission of their departments and the College of LAS. LEAP Scholars retain the title for two years and each scholar receives $5,000 in discretionary research funding for each of those two years.
Yan joined Illinois after earning his doctoral degree from Purdue University in 2015. He is most interested in language testing and learning. He has five book chapters that are published or have been accepted for publication, and 10 journal articles either published or in press.
Yan has been listed among the Teachers Ranked as Excellent in each of his semesters of teaching since 2016, and he is widely sought as an advisor on research projects across campus. Since he arrived in 2015, Yan has also served as director of the English Placement Test, which is taken by more than 2,000 Illinois students per year. He is credited with redesigning the test structure to improve the format for students and instructors.