Biography
Lergia Olivo, PhD is an instructional designer at FIU Online, helping faculty design, develop, and maintain fully-online and certified hybrid courses. With her team, Lergia consults with faculty members on course design, accessibility, textbook costs, and other elements that together create successful learning experiences for students. Previously, she was an Assistant Teaching Professor at FIU’s English Language Institute, teaching intermediate levels of Communicative Grammar, Writing, Reading & Vocabulary, and Communication in the Intensive English Program to international students from an array of countries worldwide.
Lergia has worked at FIU since December 2011, but she has been a Golden Panther since 2006. She has attained several degrees from FIU: a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Arts in Linguistics, and most recently a PhD in Teaching and Learning, focusing on online English language education.
As a Faculty Fellow in the Honors College, Lergia’s Honors Seminar course entitled The Language Phenomenon: Instinct or Artifact? allows students to investigate whether human language is acquired instinctually or whether it is learned behavior like riding a bike. Lergia has also previously taught Introduction to Honors (IDH1931), and she is available as an ARCH faculty mentor.
Outside of work, Lergia spends time reading–novels of every genre, nonfiction, and even textbooks–there’s always something new to learn. Lergia also enjoys watching college and professional sports with her husband and son, and building Lego sets and book nooks.