Xun Yan is an associate professor of Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education, and Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He received his PhD degree in second language studies from Purdue University. At UIUC, Xun is the director of the undergraduate program in Linguistics + TESOL and the supervisor of the English Placement Test and the English Proficiency Interview. Xun’s research interests include speaking and writing assessment, psycholinguistic approaches to language testing, and language assessment literacy. His work has been published in journals including Applied Linguistics, Assessing Writing, Foreign Language Annals, Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Learning, Language Testing, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, System, and TESOL Quarterly. He is a co-editor for Language Testing and a past co-editor for the Brief Research Reports of TESOL Quarterly. Xun was the recipient of the ETS TOEFL Essentials New Scholar award in 2022, UIUC’s LAS Alumni Distinguished Professorial Scholar Award in 2024, Conrad Humanities Mid-Career Scholar Award in 2022, and Lincoln Early-Career (LEAP) Scholar Award in 2018.