Dr. Li CHONG
Dr. Li CHONG holds a PhD degree in "Psycholinguistics" and "German as a Foreign Language" from the University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität). She joined the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2003 and is currently a lecturer in the German Programme of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. Her research interests include Learning and Teaching German as a Foreign Language in Multi-cultural Contexts and Intercultural Studies. Her most recent publication "German National Identity: Moving Beyond Guilt" appeared in the book "European National Identities. Elements. Transitions. Conflicts". She has also published a research article "German as a Foreign Language in an English-Chinese Environment – Current Situation and Promotion in Hong Kong" in Langenscheidts Deutsch als Fremdsprache, a reputable journal on Teaching German as a Foreign Language. Currently, she is working on two publications: "German as a Foreign Language at Secondary School Level in Hong Kong" and "A University of Hong Kong Knowledge Exchange Project Integrating Research and Teaching". For three consecutive years from 2014-2017, she has successfully received Knowledge Exchange Grants for her self-initiated pilot project involving German Programme students at HKU. Dr. Chong is also the recipient of the HKU Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Award in 2015.

Professor Kathrin SIEBOLD
Dr. Kathrin SIEBOLD is a Professor for German as a Foreign Language in the Faculty of German Studies and Arts at the Philipps-Universität in Marburg. She holds degrees for German and Spanish Philology from the Universities of Munich and Marburg and a PhD in German Linguistics from the University of Seville, where she has taught for over 10 years in the teacher-training program and translation studies. In Marburg, she is responsible for conducting several postgraduate degree programs related to German as a Foreign Language. Her research interests lie in Contrastive and Intercultural Pragmatics, Interlanguage Studies and Innovative Second Language Teaching Methods. She has published in international journals including Journal of Pragmatics, Info DaF, Zielsprache Deutsch and numerous international books. Currently she works on different publications about the development of pragmatic competence (discourse markers, hesitation phenomena, mitigation and intensification of speech acts) in German and Spanish as foreign languages. Professor Siebold received a research fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Extraordinary Doctorate Award from the University of Seville.

Professor Jin ZHAO
Professor Jin ZHAO is Head of German Studies at the Tongji University, Shanghai. She holds a Master degree from the Tongji University and her PhD from the Philipps-Universität Marburg as a DAAD scholarship holder. She completed her postdoctoral research work as a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. Her research interests lie in text linguistics, discourse linguistics, intercultural communication, German as a foreign language and the philosophy of languages of Wilhelm von Humboldt. She has published in international journals including Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (LiLi), Muttersprache, Deutsch als Fremdsprache, Info DaF and various international handbooks. Her current projects include a study of ten biographies of Wilhelm von Humboldt and a comparative study of German and Chinese scientific language and scientific communication. Professor Zhao was awarded the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Prize, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Humboldt Foundation, and fellowship of Morphomata at the Universität zu Köln.