It is with great sadness we announce the passing of a valuable OpenTEL Steering Committee member, Prof Stephen Bax.

Stephen was from the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics. He joined The Open University (OU) as Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics in 2015. He took on the role of Director for Research Excellence in August 2016 when the new School of Languages and Applied Linguistics was formed in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS).

Stephen was an internationally recognised researcher in the area of technology for language learning. Stephen was committed to making language research the best it could be, at the OU and elsewhere. Stephen was pivotal in shaping the research and scholarship agenda of the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics and nurturing colleagues to fulfill their research potential. He was a very kind man, always positive and always ready to have a good laugh. We’d like to express our condolences to his friends and family. We will miss him terribly.