Shiva Motaghi-Tabari is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and a member of the Language on the Move research team. Her research interests lie in second language learning and teaching, intercultural communication, language and migration, and family language policy and home language maintenance in migration contexts. 

Shiva completed her PhD in Linguistics at Macquarie University on the topic of Bidirectional Language Learning in Migrant Families. The thesis examined the intersection of parental language learning with child language learning in Iranian migrants to Australia. The thesis won the Australian Linguistic Society’s 2017 Michael Clyne Award.

Shiva has worked in various capacities, including lecturing and tutoring roles at different Australian universities, including University of Sydney and Australian Catholic University. She also has contributed to the promotion of community languages learning in New South Wales by serving as a consultant for the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) and the NSW Department of Education.