Professor Kathleen Heugh, formerly Professor of Language Education and Multilingualism at the University of South Australia, is a socio-applied linguist who specialises in language policy and planning, bilingual and multilingual education, and English Medium Instruction (EMI). She has more than four decades of field research among multilingual communities in remote, rural and urban settings in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. She has worked with several large transnational organisations (including various agencies of the UN, the African Union, the Council of Europe; language related bodies such as the British Council; and international think-tanks in Europe and North America). 
 
She is concerned with policy and its implementation in bilingual and multilingual education for displaced, migrant and refugee students within alternative and mainstream systems. She pays particular attention to the relationships among the community languages, knowledges and faith (belief), how / whether school systems adjust to these, and consequences for student retention and success. This work has led to a theorisation of 'southern multilingualisms' that include 'vertical translanguaging' and 'transknowledging' alongside Christopher Stroud's conceptualisation of  'linguistic citizenship'.
 
Together with Christopher Stroud, she founded the Southern Multilingualisms and Diversities Consortium in 2012 which initiated subsequent theoretical debate and research in 'Southern Multilingualisms' and 'Southern Sociolinguistics'. The southern perspective differs from recent portrayals of multilingualism as a singular phenomenon in much Euro-North oriented debate. Kathleen and Christopher are currently exploring how southern multilingualisms may contribute to the transformation of education and academia in times of global anxiety, conflict and human displacement.
 
Kathleen has specialist expertise in system-wide and multi-country evaluation studies on languages and literacy in education. She served as Ministerial  advisor on language policy for the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1995-6) and was subsequently appointed to two statutory bodies established through the Constitution. As a founding member of the Pan South African Language Board, Kathleen initiated and led the first Sociolinguistic Survey of South Africa (2000). She also led the design, development and administration of the first system-wide multilingual assessment of students in the world for the Human Sciences Resesarch Council of South Africa (2006).
 
Her field research, in conflict and post-conflict settings with displaced, migrant and minoritised communities in more than 35 countries informs UNESCO and UNICEF language education policy recommendations for countries in Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the UN Human Rights Council more widely. 
 
Kathleen has been awarded several honorary positions, including with the University of the Western Cape and the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa, and the National Multilingual Education Resource Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She has been a distinguished Visiting Professor at Rhodes University and the University of South Africa; Visiting Professor at the Universities of Ghent and Geneva, Visiting Scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the Universities of Antwerp and Louvain in Belguim. She was given a prestigious Rhodes University's Distinguished Alumni Award in 2022.
 
With Christopher Stroud (Western Cape and Stockholm) and Piet van Avermaet (Ghent), she is the Bloomsbury Series Editor of Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education. She serves on the editorial boards of twelve international journals and a book series, has over 140 peer reviewed publications and has authored 20 reports for government, international and transnational agencies.
 
Kathleen received a BA (Hons) from Rhodes University; MPhil (Language Education, cum laude) University of Cape Town; and PhD (Bilingualism) Stockholm University. She taught postgraduate programmes in language policy and planning, and bilingual and multilingual education at the Universities of Antwerp and Cape Town, and she supervised PhD students at the University of South Australia. She is now retired and serves as an Adjunct Professor of Education at Adelaide University.