Staff
Administration
Dr. Brad Teague, Director
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Brad joined INTERLINK / UNCG as the assistant director during the summer of 2010 and became director in October of the same year. Prior to coming to INTERLINK, he taught ESL to international students as well as content courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs in ESL education at Vanderbilt University. His research interests include second language acquisition, ESL teacher preparation, and program administration, and he has taught and conducted research in both K-12 and adult second-language settings. He also lived, studied, and worked in different parts of Mexico for four years. Brad earned a B.A. in Spanish and linguistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.A. in applied linguistics from the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla (Mexico), and a Ph.D. in education from Vanderbilt University. Aside from his professional activities, he enjoys spending time with his Miniature Schnauzer, reading, and traveling.
Ms. Renée Perretto Smith, Administrative Assistant
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Renee has been at INTERLINK since 2006 and appreciates the opportunity to meet students from all over the world. She has a bachelor's degree in psychology, which she started at UNC-Chapel Hill but finished at UNCG. She enjoys learning new things about a variety of subjects. Her hobbies include drawing and painting, making jewelry, and playing various musical instruments. Renee also volunteers with an animal-rescue program and has a few rescued animals of her own. She loves nature and spending as much time as she can outdoors, especially on long bike rides with her husband.
Ms. Casey Merie Thomas, Office Assistant and Student Activities Coordinator
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Casey Merie was born in New York City and grew up in Virginia, Zimbabwe, India, and Bangladesh. Her family is from South Carolina and various parts of the Caribbean, mainly the British Virgin Islands. She spent the last year volunteering with the Americorps ACCESS Project through the Center for New North Carolinians. She has a B.A. in sociology and anthropology with a concentration in religious studies from Guilford College. Her interests include mangos, pasta, Zora Neale Hurston, her gigantic family, and evenings on porches with friends.
Academic Coordinator
Ms. Lynn Bergsch
neider
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Lynn has taught in Ecuador, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and in various cities in the U.S. She received her B.S. in Business Administration-Marketing from the University of Illiniois, Champaign-Urbana. After a few years working in international marketing, she attended the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont and received her M.A.T. in TESOL. For the next five years she worked in the field of English for Business Purposes for the Language Institute of Japan, Sumitomo Metals, and Procter & Gamble. In 1996 she joined INTERLINK at the Terre Haute campus, took a year off to teach at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai, and then returned to INTERLINK at UNCG. She still finds working with international students enriching after almost 20 years in the field. Her other passions include outdoor activities like hiking, kayaking, and gardening. She is currently an intern in the Extension Master Gardener's program at the Guilford County Extension.
Full-Time Instructors
Ms. Molly Anthony
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Molly first started working with ESL students as a student tutor at the writing center of her undergraduate institution, Marietta College. She graduated from Marietta with a double major in English and psychology and a minor in leadership. She went on to complete the English M.A. program, with a concentration in TESOL, at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. While at IUPUI, she worked at an academic center that specialized in intercultural communication, she participated in the teaching and development of intensive English programs, and she conducted research in corpus linguistics and contrastive rhetoric. From August 2006-July 2007, she taught at Shantou University in Shantou, Guangdong, China. Molly has been teaching at INTERLINK/UNCG since October of 2007.
Ms. Ellen Baumgartner
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Ellen joined INTERLINK first as a part-time instructor in August, 2006 and then began full-time in January 2007. Ellen did her undergraduate work at Drew University in Madison, NJ, majoring in Behavioral Science and Education. She taught for a few years in elementary schools and pre-schools and then decided that she needed a change. Due to her love of traveling and wanting to take advantage of her Swiss citizenship, she went to Switzerland in order to improve her French and learn German. On the way, she discovered English-language teaching and earned her CELTA certificate from International House, London in 1993. She then began teaching for a private language school in the cities of Zug and Basel in Switzerland. In 2002, she returned to the States after 13 years of living abroad and pursued her M.Ed. with an ESL concentration at UNCG. While doing this, she also taught ESL to immigrants at GTCC. Ellen enjoys reading, especially historical fiction, listening to music, traveling, trying new restaurants, and playing with her dog, Sandy. She loves her students at INTERLINK because they teach her so much about their cultures and because they are so motivated to learn.
Ms. Sarah Gulley
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Sarah Gulley started teaching at INTERLINK in October 2010. Before that, she was an English Language Fellow through the U.S. State Department in the Chouf Mountains of Lebanon and a Young Adult Literacy/ESOL teacher in the Bronx in New York City. She has a master's degree in TESOL from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont and a B.A. in Spanish Language and Literature from UNC-Greensboro. She loves to travel (5 continents and counting) and see new things, thinks the world is incredibly interesting, and just might be the only person you know who has been to Timbuktu.
Mr. Christopher (Chris) Shawn Mulvey
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Chris started at INTERLINK in October 2011. Before that, he taught ESL for 7 years at the national university of the United Arab Emirates. Other places Chris has taught English include the New York City Public School System, Seoul National University in South Korea, and several provincial secondary schools in the Gobi Desert of southeastern Mongolia. Chris received his master’s degree in TESOL from Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1999. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Florida State University. Chris likes to spend his free time on the golf course with friends, playing tennis with his two sons, or at home with his feet up and a good book in his hands. He's a Sagittarius, and his favorite food is pizza (no veggies on it please).
Dr. Patricia Talbert
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Pat joined the INTERLINK staff in the summer of 2011. Before coming to INTERLINK, she taught English composition at various universities and colleges. She completed her M.Ed. with a focus on ESL teaching in May 2011 at UNCG. During this time, Pat helped to create a highly successful English-language-tutoring program for parents of ESL students at Asheboro Middle School. An avid traveler, she has visited countries across the globe, including most of Western Europe, Poland, Japan, the Caribbean, India, Nepal, and Central America. She lived in Edinburgh, Scotland for nearly two years while completing a graduate degree at the University of Edinburgh. Her interest in Scottish culture and music then led her to complete a Ph.D. in Scottish literature and history at the University of South Carolina. Pat loves to read, enjoys cross-stitch and knitting, and is a musician (she plays harp and violin). She specializes in Scottish traditional music, performing and judging competitions all over the Southeast. Pat and her husband frequently travel to Scottish highland games.
Ms. Jill Wagner
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Jill joined INTERLINK in August 2011. Before that, she taught ESL to adult learners at a local community college and did her student teaching with elementary and middle school ESL students in the North Carolina public school system. Prior to teaching ESL, she worked as a corporate writer and editor for several international companies, and she served as an ESL and adult literacy tutor. She has an M.Ed. in TESOL from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a B.A. in English from Michigan State University. She also holds a certificate in TESL from Duke University. She has studied Spanish, French, and German and would like to learn Arabic. Jill enjoys meeting people from all over the world, learning about other cultures, and traveling abroad. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, gardening, watching her daughter and son play soccer, and being outdoors with her family, especially in the North Carolina mountains.
Ms. Michele (Mikki) Washburn
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Mikki started teaching at INTERLINK in October 2011. She came to North Carolina from eastern Pennsylvania, where she taught international students in the University of Pennsylvania's English Language Program. Before that, she taught adult English Language Learners in New Mexico and Texas. She earned an M.S.Ed. in TESOL from Shenandoah University in Virginia. In college, Mikki studied and minored in Spanish and Latin American Culture, and she discovered that learning about languages and cultures was one of her passions. Her international travels have taken her to Spain, Colombia, and Ireland, and she hopes to explore more of the world in the years ahead. Mikki is an avid reader --- her mantra is “read, read, read!”
Part-Time Instructors
Mr. David Carlisle
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Originally from Rochester, New York, David went to Indiana to study American and European history at Earlham College, spending one semester in Olomouc, Czech Republic. After graduation, he moved to the Czech city of Brno and taught kids who were just beginning to learn English, helped high school and university students improve the English they already knew, and worked with all kinds of business people who needed English for doing business. David also tried to see as much of the Czech Republic as he could and visited many of Europe's less-expensive countries. After 11 years in Europe, he returned to the United States to earn an M.A.T. in TESOL at the School for International Training in Vermont. David enjoys talking to and learning from people of all ages and experiences. His hobbies include photography, travel, classical music, and he's interested in history, geography, and all kinds of boring things.
Ms. Andrea Robertson
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Andrea Robertson grew up in West Virginia and earned her B.A. in Religious Studies at Guilford College. After a year of volunteering with Americorps, she went on to receive an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at American University, in Washington DC, where she worked with non-native English speakers in the university’s writing center. In her spare time, she enjoys crocheting, painting, reading, and writing. As a writer, Andrea enjoys the new perspectives that non-native speakers give her on English. Her short stories have appeared in Panhandler and Ghost Town magazines.
