Dr. Appel holds a Staatsexamen für das Lehramt (magna cum laude) in Foreign Language Education from the University of Kassel (Germany) and a doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Delaware. Before coming to Penn State in 1999, she taught for eight years at Cornell University and two years at the University of Delaware. At University Park, in addition to having taught German language and Business German courses, she offers a graduate seminar on Second Language Vocabulary and one on Second Language Reading. Her research interests are in Vocabulary Learning and Teaching, Assessment and Evaluation and Teacher Education. Since 2001, she is an Associate Editor of the Modern Language Journal and since 2002, the Program Coordinator of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER) at Penn State.