Robert B. Kaplan is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Southern California. He has published numerous books and articles in refereed journals and written several special reports to government both in the US and elsewhere. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics and is a member of the editorial board of the 1st and 2nd editions of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2002). Additionally, he edited the Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics. He has served as President of the National Association for Foreign Students Affairs, of TESOL, and of the American Association for Applied Linguistics.