Researcher · Educator · Theorist

Dr. Ngo Cong-Lem

An applied linguist and interdisciplinary researcher working across three connected areas: generative AI in education, human agency and emotion, and evidence synthesis for policy and practice. My research examines how people learn, exercise judgement, and respond to change, and how research evidence can inform educational and public decisions.

Lecturer · Dalat University, Vietnam Postdoctoral Fellow · Evidence for Policy & Practice, Monash University, Australia ★ World's Top 2% Scientists · Stanford–Elsevier, 2026
Generative AI Agency & Emotion Evidence Synthesis Applied Linguistics
EXPLORE

01 · About

Research profile and contributions

I am an interdisciplinary scholar working across education, psychology, and public health and policy, with applied linguistics as a principal field of application. My research tends towards a causal-explanatory orientation: alongside describing what happens in learning and professional practice, I aim to understand why it may happen and which mechanisms could account for it.

Much of this research can be understood as a study of change. Drawing on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, I examine how people come to decide whether to change, and how emotion and intellect, together with individual differences and the conditions of their environments, appear to shape the way learners and educators interpret and respond to new demands, from institutional reform to generative AI.

Having been educated in Vietnam, Taiwan, and Australia, I draw on experience of several educational systems when approaching questions of language and higher education. My methodological training is complemented by professional certificates from HarvardX (Python for Data Science and Machine Learning) and Google.

Contributions and recognition

01 · Explaining
Understanding how people develop through change
Cultural-historical research on agency, emotion, and cognition explains why people take up or resist change, and why the same technology, training, or institutional reform can lead to very different responses. It attends to how emotions shape the way people interpret and act on experience, and to how individual differences in background, beliefs, and prior experience influence learning and professional growth.
02 · Designing
Promoting critical thinking with GenAI
This understanding informs the design of interventions that promote critical thinking with generative AI, together with teaching and assessment approaches that position AI outputs as objects of reasoning and help learners explain, justify, and take responsibility for their work.
03 · Examining
Studying whether that learning occurs
Measurement and conceptual resources help educators and researchers investigate whether, and under what conditions, students engage critically with AI rather than accept its outputs passively.
04 · Informing
Connecting evidence with decisions
Evidence synthesis supports organisations and policymakers in deciding which practices to adopt, under what conditions, and for whose benefit, with attention to equity and access.
2,000+
Google Scholar citations · 2026
h-index 23. Listed among the World's Top 2% Scientists (Stanford–Elsevier, single-year list, 2026).
40+
Peer-reviewed journal articles since 2020
Across applied linguistics, education, educational technology, psychology, and health services research.
Impact trajectory
Cumulative Google Scholar citations
Raw citation counts

02 · Research Areas

Three connected research areas

Applied linguistics is the principal field in which much of this research is conducted, and cultural-historical theory provides its intellectual foundation. The three areas retain distinct contributions, and their intersections are described in the next section.

01
Generative AI
in Education

This research area investigates how generative AI changes learning, thinking, authorship, and assessment, with a particular focus on language and higher education.

  • How do learners use generative AI when composing, reasoning, and learning in a second language?
  • How can critical thinking and accountability be understood and assessed in AI-mediated environments?
  • Which educational conditions support meaningful and equitable participation?
02
Agency, Emotion
& Educational Change

This research area examines how educators interpret challenging experiences and act within the opportunities and constraints of their professional environments. It brings together systematic reviews of teacher agency, conceptual work on perezhivanie and the unity of emotion and cognition, and empirical studies of language teachers.

  • How do cognition, emotion, and identity shape teachers’ professional agency?
  • How do educators negotiate critical events, institutional reform, and English-medium instruction?
  • How does agency develop as teaching practice encounters new technologies, including generative AI?
03
Evidence Synthesis
for Policy & Practice

This research area involves the appraisal, integration, and interpretation of research for decision-making. Reviews span education, hospital settings, assistive technology, disability, and sustainability education.

  • How can systematic, scoping, and rapid reviews be designed to meet the needs of decision-makers?
  • How do commissioning organisations use rapid reviews once they are delivered?
  • How should evidence-informed policy and practice adapt as generative AI changes the production of knowledge?

03 · Connections

How the research connects

Each research area stands on its own, and not every project addresses all three. The map shows where the areas inform one another most directly.

Generative AI
Agency & Emotion
Evidence Synthesis
Intersections
Cultural-Historical Theory
Applied Linguistics

04 · Connect

Proposals and connections

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