My career has never followed a perfectly straight path. It has moved across literature, language education, content development, freelancing, educational technology, product management, instructional design, and research. Looking back, however, each stage has contributed to the same larger goal: understanding how people learn and designing better experiences to support that learning.
PhD in Learning Experience Design and Technology
University of Oklahoma | August 2025–Present
In August 2025, I began my PhD in Learning Experience Design and Technology at the University of Oklahoma. For me, this represents more than another academic degree. It brings together many parts of my journey that once seemed separate—teaching, educational technology, product development, instructional design, and research.
My doctoral work allows me to move beyond designing learning experiences to asking deeper questions about how and why they work, who benefits from them, and whose needs may be overlooked.
My research interests currently center on artificial intelligence in education, critical AI literacy, ethical and equitable technology integration, learner and teacher agency, and human-centered learning design.
Alongside my doctoral studies, I have worked as a Graduate Research Assistant and Instructional Designer, contributing to course development, faculty professional development, needs assessment, and research-informed learning experience design.
This stage of my journey is helping me connect years of professional practice with learning sciences and educational research.
MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Michigan State University | August 2023–May 2025
Moving to the United States to pursue my MA in TESOL at Michigan State University was one of the biggest transitions of my life, both personally and professionally.
At MSU, I was able to revisit language teaching through a much stronger research lens while exploring the rapidly changing relationship between education and technology. My interests increasingly moved toward the intersection of language learning, instructional design, educational technology, and artificial intelligence.
During this period, I worked in several roles across MSU, including as a Graduate Assistant, Instructional Designer, and English instructor. These opportunities allowed me to design curricula and learning materials, teach multilingual learners, support educational programs, and collaborate with faculty and professional teams.
My graduate research also explored learners’ experiences using generative AI for English speaking practice. That work strengthened my interest in understanding how learners interact with AI and how emerging technologies can be integrated into education without losing sight of pedagogy, human agency, ethics, and equity.
By the time I completed my degree, I knew that I wanted my next step to combine research, learning design, and educational technology. That realization eventually brought me to the University of Oklahoma for my PhD.
Product Manager, Freelancer, and Global EdTech Experience
Ilmiya | January 2022–April 2023
My time at Ilmiya marked another important transition in my career. As a Product Manager, I worked with international teams of curriculum designers, educators, graphic designers, and software engineers to develop educational technology products.
The role required me to think beyond individual lessons or courses. I became increasingly involved in the larger systems behind educational products—curriculum alignment, user needs, development processes, team coordination, quality assurance, and scalability.
At the same time, I was building another important part of my professional career through Upwork.
Over the years, I worked with numerous clients from different parts of the world on projects involving instructional design, curriculum development, e-learning, content development, and educational technology. Eventually, I earned Top Rated Plus status on Upwork, an achievement that represented not only successful projects but also the trust I had been able to build with clients across different countries and professional contexts.
Freelancing exposed me to organizations, industries, technologies, and ways of working that I might never have encountered through a single traditional job. Every new project required me to quickly understand a different audience, problem, workflow, or learning context.
Together, my work at Ilmiya and my international freelance experience taught me how educational ideas move from concept to implementation—and how learning professionals must communicate and collaborate across disciplinary, organizational, and cultural boundaries.
Head of Product
Staff Asia | December 2018–January 2022
Staff Asia was where much of my professional identity in educational technology began to take shape.
I joined the organization as a Content Developer and gradually progressed through roles in research and development, team leadership, senior product management, and eventually Head of Product.
That progression gave me the opportunity to experience nearly every stage of educational product development.
I worked on online courses, learning platforms, curriculum development, content production, quality assurance, and project management while leading cross-functional teams. Managing educators, designers, developers, and content specialists taught me how complex learning products move from an idea to something that learners can actually use.
More importantly, this experience helped me realize that my interests extended beyond writing educational content. I became increasingly curious about how learning experiences are structured, how technology influences those experiences, and how teams can systematically design better educational products.
Those questions eventually pushed me toward instructional design, learning experience design, and educational research.
MA in Applied Linguistics and ELT
Jahangirnagar University | December 2016–December 2017
After completing my undergraduate degree, I continued at Jahangirnagar University with an MA in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching.
This was an important intellectual transition for me. My undergraduate education had given me a strong foundation in language and literature, but applied linguistics encouraged me to think much more systematically about how people learn languages and how teaching can support that process.
I became increasingly interested in language pedagogy, second-language acquisition, curriculum design, assessment, and classroom practices.
The degree also strengthened the connection between my academic interests and my experience as an English teacher. Instead of viewing teaching primarily as delivering content, I began thinking more carefully about learners, instructional choices, learning objectives, assessment, and the processes behind effective teaching.
I did not know it then, but many of those questions would later reappear in my work in instructional design and learning experience design.
BA in English Language and Literature
Jahangirnagar University | December 2012–December 2016
My academic journey began at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, but getting there was itself a major milestone in my life.
For many Bangladeshi students, admission to a public university is a life-changing opportunity. Public universities are highly competitive, while the cost of education is heavily subsidized by the government. For students from families with limited financial resources, that distinction can determine whether higher education is realistically possible at all.
That was certainly true for me.
My parents would not have been able to afford the cost of sending me to a private university. Getting admitted to Jahangirnagar University therefore meant much more than receiving an acceptance letter. It meant that I could actually pursue higher education.
I entered the university to study English Language and Literature. At that point, I could never have imagined where that opportunity would eventually take me.
Studying literature taught me to examine ideas from multiple perspectives, question assumptions, interpret complex texts, and understand how language shapes people’s experiences. My study of language, meanwhile, introduced me to questions about communication, linguistics, and learning.
During my undergraduate years, I also began teaching English. What initially started as teaching grammar, comprehension, and speaking gradually developed into a deeper interest in education itself.
Years later, that path would take me from an English classroom in Bangladesh to educational technology, global freelance projects, product leadership, graduate education at Michigan State University, and eventually doctoral research in Learning Experience Design and Technology at the University of Oklahoma.
Looking back, the connection between these stages makes much more sense than it did while I was living through them.
- Literature taught me to think critically.
- Language teaching taught me to think about learners.
- Freelancing taught me to adapt across cultures, organizations, and problems.
- Product management taught me to think about teams, systems, and scale.
- Instructional design taught me to intentionally design learning experiences.
- Research is now teaching me to question why those designs work, for whom they work, and under what conditions.
Mahbub Amin 