Donna Obenda serves as the Assistant Director at the Intensive English Language Institute. She has a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Southern Illinois University. Ms. Obenda has taught or been an administrator at English programs in Turkey, the Congo, Kenya, Japan, China and the U.S.

Her professional area of interest is academic vocabulary acquisition. She is the series editor of the ESL vocabulary textbook series, Academic Word Power. She developed this series of books in order to help ESL students learn the words they need to know to succeed in their university classes.

Outside of work, Ms. Obenda enjoys dancing, yoga, and gardening. She loves living in Denton because of its vibrant music and art scene and sunny climate. 

Ms. Obenda feels fortunate to work at the IELI. She finds it very rewarding to see how the high standards and structured curriculum of the IELI help students reach their academic and personal goals. She also feels very lucky to be able to interact with students from all over the world on a daily basis.