About the Debbie O'Neal AwardDennis and Debbie O'Neal

This annual award is named for Debbie O’Neal, an instructor in the English Department at East Carolina University (ECU), who died in a plane accident in 2013. She was passionate about linguistics and TESOL, working on many projects involving language variation and educating people on language. The memorial award is funded by Carolina TESOL in recognition of her contributions to the TESOL community. The amount of the award is generally $500. Outstanding students are nominated by TESOL and linguistics faculty in the Department of English at ECU. Any graduate and undergraduate student with an interest in linguistics/TESOL is eligible, but preference will be given to those students with a declared interest in linguistics/TESOL.

 2025 Winners

Sara Kalawska

Michael Atkins

 

2024 Winner

Emily White