Dr. Marlen Elliot Harrison’s student-centered and project-based approaches to language and composition education have led him to teaching in over 50 different academic programs at more than 15 different universities across three continents. A current graduate instructor for Southern New Hampshire University’s MA English programs and Tiffin University’s M.Ed. programs, Marlen has previously guest-lectured or taught at Florida International University (FL), Indiana University East (online), University of Jyväskylä (Finland), University of Helsinki (Finland), University of Liège (Belgium), Aarhus University (Denmark), Doshisha University (Japan), and the George Washington University (DC). Prior to his career in education, he worked in public and mental health at institutions such as the Psychiatric Institute of Washington (DC), Johns Hopkins Hospital (MD), and the North Baltimore Center (MD).
Having earned a PhD in writing and language teaching from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (PA), Marlen also earned a Masters degree in Education and human Development (Counseling) from The George Washington University (DC) and a Bachelors degree in Psychology from Appalachian State University (NC). In 2020, Marlen began his MFA in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University.
Marlen is the recipient of numerous research and educational grants/fellowships such as a Best of JALT (Japan, 2006) award for his research examining learner autonomy and creative assessment, and international grants/honoraria to teach in Canada (Simon Fraser University), Japan (Saitama University), Finland (University of Rovaniemi), Denmark (NordPlus; University of Aarhus), and Belgium (Erasmus; University of Liege). He has delivered over 80 academic presentations at international conferences and symposia, and has published more than 30 academic manuscripts in The Qualitative Report (USA), Qualitative Research in Psychology (USA), Language Learning in Higher Education (UK), Writing on the Edge (USA), Reflections on English Language Teaching (Singapore), CALL-EJ (Australia), and The Language Teacher (Japan). In 2015, he was contracted to organize a group of international scholars to assist in the curation of a collaborative online exhibit among Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, National Postal Museum, and the US Postal service. In 2017 he developed the Writing Center and EAP program for the new American University of Malta, and served as the Assessment Coordinator for the general education program.
As a journalist, Dr. Harrison is the founder and editor-in-chief of The AutoEthnographer literary and arts magazine. He was a contributor to and Managing Editor of the Fragrantica family of websites (a magazine and database dedicated to fragrance and olfaction read by over 12 million viewers a month and published in 17 different languages), working with a staff of more than 20 international, multilingual writers. Dr. Harrison has also contributed to BusinessInsider.com, Basenotes.com, NowSmellThis.com, The Washington Blade, MensJournal.com, MensFitness.com, Playboy.com, NYTimes.com, WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal), Forbes.com, and international publications such as Finland’s Anna and Viva magazines and Canada’s Glow magazine. His writing has earned him international recognition and invitations to speak at events such as the 2008 Symposium of the American Society of Perfumers in NYC and the 2016 Esxence Fragrance exhibition in Milan.
After calling Japan, UK, Malta, and Finland home, he has returned to Florida, his birthplace, where he lives with his husband and dog.
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