In Memoriam: Timothy Francis McNamara (1949-2023)

On September 15, 2023, the language testing community lost one of our own. Former ILTA President (1998), Professor Emeritus Timothy Francis McNamara (1949-2023) passed away after a long battle with cancer. When the sad and shocking news came across LTEST-L, hundreds of messages were sent to the listserv, all with a common theme: Tim was above all, an amazing human being, a kind and generous soul, a compassionate voice for those who needed protection, just a kind word, or just a little support. Tim’s true gift was his ability to engage with people, to quickly find their worth, and to make a meaningfully, enduring connection.

Besides his humanity, on that day in September, the language testing community had the opportunity to reflect upon Tim’s unparalleled career. His accomplishments were many and characterized by interdisciplinarity. However, in terms of language testing and assessment, Tim began his career with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, where he eventually became the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in the School of Languages and Linguistics. He was instrumental in creating the internationally renowned Applied Linguistics Program there, and for co-establishing (with Alan Davies) the respected Language Testing Research Centre, which he directed for many years. The Centre provided Tim with the opportunity to mentor a generation of language testers, many of whom continue to make significant contributions to the field of language assessment. Tim sponsored dozens of MA theses and PhD dissertations in assessment, and unique to Tim, regularly met with doctoral students on his visits around the world, where he would generously listen to their ideas, discuss their challenges, and offer friendly advice and support – for which many of us are eternally grateful.

Tim was a brilliant researcher, gifted speaker, and a compassionate listener, always eager to share his insights at conferences. His scholarly interests and impressive list of publications spanned many topics: from Rasch measurement and the use of FACETS; to the social dimension of assessment and the importance of discourse analysis; to indigenous criteria in professional contexts of assessment; to fairness, justice and ethical concerns in the use of tests; to issues of identity and assessment; and to the complexities of classroom-based assessment. Often writing with colleagues, Tim’s scholarly contributions were always grounded in the resolution of persistent real-world testing problems, and for this, he was the recipient of many honors and accolades. In 2009, he was the winner (with C. Roever) of the Sage/ILTA (International Language Testing Association) award for best book published in language assessment. In 2015, he was presented with the Cambridge/ILTA Distinguished Achievement Award. He was the winner of the ILTA Best Article in Language Testing Award twice: in 2016 (along with C. Van Den Hazelkamp and M. Verrips), and in 2001 (along with N. Iwashita and C. Elder). He was also enlisted as Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2010, Fellow of the British Academy of the Social Sciences in 2017, and was inducted as a member of the Order of Australia in 2021. Tim gave countless scholarly presentations around the world. And known for his ability to teach complex topics, he was offered visiting appointments at approximately 14 different universities, where he gave courses and seminars – all the while actively seeing to make meaningful connections with testers and other applied linguists, with other professors across the university, and admirably, with artists, poets, and interesting people within the community.

Tim was an active member in the applied linguistics community throughout his life. He was the chair of AAAL in 2017 and President of AAAL in 2018. For ILTA he served on many committees, co-chaired the Language Testing Research Colloquium in Melbourne in 2006, and was the President in 1998. Tim also served on many editorial boards and advisory committees throughout his career.

Tim’s legacy lives on in us in many ways. For those of us given the opportunity to know him, we are all better off as a result.