Ai-Ling Lu is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University. Her research interests encompass Chinese language pedagogy, second language acquisition, and conversation analysis. She aims to develop pedagogical approaches that prepare learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) to use context-appropriate interactional repertoires for effective intercultural communication. She also investigates the affordances and limitations of generative AI as a conversational partner. She received the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) Jiede Empirical Research Grant, an honor awarded to only one recipient each year.

Her study on shadowing authentic materials for Mandarin tone training, co-authored with Dr. Danjie Su, was published in the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. She has also contributed to the Fulbright FLTA storybook series, designed to support self-directed learning and introduce learners to Taiwanese culture.

In addition to Chinese language pedagogy, she is interested in cultural studies, with a particular focus on Taiwanese indigenous writers. Her translation of a work by Adaw Palaf was published in Tupelo Quarterly. She also employs self-translation as a lens to interpret indigenous poetry, exploring their in-between identities.

Ai-Ling has shared her research at conferences, including the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and CLTA, and she is dedicated to increasing public awareness of Chinese language pedagogy research. She earned first place in the Humanities Oral Presentation at the Edward F. Hayes Advanced Research Forum at The Ohio State University and the university-wide  3-Minute Thesis competition at the University of Arkansas.

Beyond her research, Ai-Ling is deeply committed to teaching. She has over seven years of experience teaching Chinese at various levels in U.S. universities. In 2025, she received the Graduate Teaching Award at The Ohio State University. She also has extensive study abroad teaching experience, including the Flagship and Signature Summer Programs at National Taiwan Normal University.