Ying Zhou received her Ph.D. in Chinese Linguistics and her M.A. in Second Language Studies from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. She earned her B.A. in English from the Beijing Language and Culture University in China. Having grown up in China, she moved to the United States for her graduate studies. Before joining St. Olaf College in 2014, she taught for five years at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. Her research primarily focuses on second language acquisition and pedagogy, with a particular interest in affective factors in second language learning and second language assessment. She has published papers on individual differences and affective factors in learning Chinese as a second language. Her recent research interests include willingness to communicate and ethnic identity in second language acquisition.