Harriett Virginia-Ann Jernigan

Bio

Harriett Jernigan is a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) and the Coordinator for the Notation in Cultural Rhetorics. She earned her B.A.in German and Creative Writing at New College at the University of Alabama and her Ph.D. in German Studies at Stanford University. She specializes in pedagogy, cultural rhetorics; pedagogical uses for generative AI; writing across the disciplines; second-language acquisition; translanguaging; translation; project-based instruction; social geography; German languages, literatures, and cultures; and cross-cultural competence. In her PWR courses, she focuses on the roles that racial and ethnic identity play in informing public and private discourse. She also participated in the English-to-German translation of the Say Their Names / No More Names online exhibit created by Felicia Smith for the Stanford Libraries.

Dr. Jernigan has received the St. Clair Drake Teaching Excellence Award, Mentor Recognition from the Native American Cultural Center, and was nominated for Teacher of the Year in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany.

Dr. Jernigan led the team that developed Stanford’s first standardized language placement tests for the Language Center in 1999 and assisted in placing it online. She served as the first official translator for internationalization at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, worked as an educational consultant for Springer Nature, and revised and expanded the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and intercultural communication curricula at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. She has published fiction, non-fiction and academic articles and is currently engaged in a SAL Seed Grant project to create a language model (LLM) using a Black Englishes corpus. She is a member of the editorial board for the journal Unterrichtspraxis, has led workshops on pedagogy in the U.S. and abroad, and serves as an advisor for two student-run journals at Stanford, GRACE and Backstory.

Dr. Jernigan teaches regularly in the EU, working with domestic and international students and refugees and asylum seekers. An avid live storyteller who has won multiple story slams at the Moth and has been a Grand Slam finalist, she performs regularly in the Bay Area as well as Portland, OR. She is also the founder and executive producer of First Person Story (firstpersonstory.org), a storytelling workshop and live event that moves intersectional voices from the margins to the center.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Writing and Rhetoric Studies

Administrative Appointments

• Project Manager, Black Englishes Corpus Project, Stanford Accelerator for Learning (2023 - 2025)
• Coordinator, Notation in Cultural Rhetorics, Program in Writing and Rhetoric (2022 - 2026)

Honors & Awards

• Creative in Residence, The Ruby (2024-2025)
• St. Clair Drake Teaching Excellence Award, Black Community Services Center (2021)
• SIIS Fellow, Brandeis University (2015)
• Most Influential Instructor in an Undergraduate’s Career, San Francisco State University (2002-2004)
• Wheeler Fellow, Stanford University (1997-1998)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

• Member, Editorial Board, Unterrichtspraxis (2024 - Present)
• Member, Steering Committee, Coalition of Women in German (2024 - Present)
• Member, Coalition of Women in German (2022 - Present)
• Member, National Council of Teachers of English (2020 - Present)
• Member, German Studies Association (2008 - Present)
• Member, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (2008 - Present)
• Member, American Association of Teachers of German (2000 - Present)
• Member, Modern Language Association (1996 - Present)

Professional Education

• Ph.D., Stanford University, German Studies (1998)
• M.A., Stanford University, German Studies (1994)
• B.A., University of Alabama, German Studies and Creative Writing (1993)

Research Interests

• Curriculum and Instruction
• Diversity and Identity
• Equity in Education
• Higher Education
• Learning Differences
• Literacy and Language
• Race and Ethnicity
• Teachers and Teaching

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

second language acquisition, learner autonomy; task-, literacy-, and project-based instruction; storytelling, critical race theory (CRT); cultural rhetorics; large language models

Writing across the disciplines; Humanities 2.0; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in pedagogy; social geography; presentation culture; podcasting and public speaking

Projects

• Black Englishes Corpus Project (BEC), Stanford University (6/5/2023 - 3/31/2025)

  This project, funded by a seed grant from the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, focuses on creating and testing a culturally sensitive language model for Black students. Unlike other similar projects, the BEC employs an all-Black engineering team, will not be monetized, and relies on ethnographic data collected through interviews, texts, and academic interactions.

  Location

  Stanford, CA

  Collaborators

  • Adam Banks, Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of African and African American Studies, Graduate School of Education, Program in Writing and Rhetoric
  • Tolulope Ogunremi, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, admitted Autumn 2021, School of Engineering
  • Elliott Douglass Rodgers, Undergraduate, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education