Lakshmi Polavarapu is currently a graduate student in the Applied Linguistics program at Georgia State University. She was raised bilingual into an Indian family who immigrated to the USA in the 1980's. Her bicultural upbringing and her language background has inspired her to travel the world and work internationally as a language teacher. After studying abroad in Greece during her undergraduate program at Emory University, she worked with the International Rescue Committee in Atlanta, Georgia, and later went on to study Applied Linguistics and EFL/ESL teaching pedagogy at Georgia State University. As a part of her Masters International Program, Lakshmi has also spent 27 months serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand. Upon returning back to the USA, she has returned to Georgia State University to finish completing her Masters Program while also teaching in GSU's Intensive English Program as a Graduate Teaching Assistant.