Maria Stubhaug is a PhD candidate at the Norwegian Centre for Writing Education and Research (the Writing Centre), Department of Teacher Education. She is affiliated with the AI LEARN research centre, and her doctoral project is part of the Symbiosis research project.

Her doctoral project examines oral interaction between upper secondary students and a speech-based AI assistant in Spanish as a foreign language. It explores how student–bot conversations unfold, and how this interaction shapes student participation and teachers’ pedagogical practice. The study is a design-based case study in a single Spanish class. It also sheds light on how data protection requirements constrain which speech technologies can be used in schools.

Maria has a background as a lower and upper secondary teacher of Spanish, English and social studies, and several years of experience as a digital and AI educator. This gives her research a strong grounding in practice. Her research interests include AI in language learning, oral skills in foreign language teaching, and the implementation of AI in schools. She holds an MA in Applied Educational Scienecs, specialising in ICT in Learning, from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.