Itesh Sachdev was born and brought up in Kenya. He completed secondary and undergraduate education in the UK, studying Psychology at the University of Bristol, and doctoral training in Social Psychology at McMaster University, Ontario, Canada. He then taught in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and is currently Professor of Language and Communication at the School of Oriental & African Studies, SOAS, University of London, UK. He has also been Director of the SOAS-UCL Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning 'Languages of the Wider World', served as President of the British Association for Canadian Studies and of the International Association for Language and Social Psychology, and is currently co-Chair of the SOAS Centre for Ethnic Minority Studies. He has published widely in the social psychology of language and intergroup relations, having conducted research with various ethnolinguistic groups including those in/from Bolivia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia and the UK.