School of Languages and Culture
Olga Dmitrieva 
Olga Dmitrieva is an Assistant Professor of Russian and Linguistics in the School of Languages and Cultures and awardee of a 2015 PRF Summer Faculty Research Grant for her project titled: “Second Language Perceptual Experience and First Language Sound Identification”.
Professor Dmitrieva’s research interests lie in acoustic phonetics, cross-linguistic speech perception, and laboratory phonology. She is also involved in research on second language acquisition, in particular the interaction between the phonologies of the first and second language in bilingual individuals. Recent projects have focused on experimental evidence for the perceptual optimization in phonology and production of voicing in languages such as Russian, English, and Spanish.
Professor Dmitrieva teaches courses in both theoretical and experimental linguistics, specifically in the areas of phonetics and phonology. Some of the previously taught courses are Introduction to Phonology, Acoustics of Speech, and Phonetics of Second Language Acquisition.
Kazumi Hatasa 
Kazumi Hatasa, a Professor of Japanese and a 2015-2016 Center for Undergraduate Instructional Excellence Awardee for his project titled: Culinary Culture of Japan.
While learning about Japanese culinary culture the student will also be practicing their language skills. Topics include history, shun (appreciation of seasonal change), foreign influence, culture of bento (box lunch), kyusyoku (school lunch and education on food), culinary culture in popular media such as manga, anime and literature, aesthetics of food presentation, culinary tools and manners (e.g. chopsticks, etc.), food and ceremony (rice, sake, religion, superstition), popular ingredients, recipes, language to describe and appreciate food, language related to food and food preparation (vocabulary and expressions).
Wei Hong 
Wei Hong, Professor in the School of Languages and Cultures, received the 2015 Award for Excellence in Distance Learning, for her online courses Chinese 101 and 102. As the first language courses to be offered online, Wei has expanded the learning opportunities for Purdue students to take credit-granting language courses. Professor Hong's team that worked on the courses included teaching assistnats Bailu Li and Sijia Yao.
Cara Kinnally 
Cara Kinnally is an Assistant Professor of Spanish in the School of Languages and Cultures and awardee of a 2015 PRF Summer Faculty Research Grant for her project titled: “Between Two Empires: Spanishness, Whiteness, and Transnational Collaboration in Greater Mexico”. Her book, examines how nineteenth-century Mexican and Mexican American writers negotiated and strategically employed discourses of Spanishness, whiteness, hemispheric solidarity, and modernization in an attempt to foster the building of transnational coalitions and political as well as intellectual communities with Anglo Americans.
Professor Kinnally specializes in 19th and 20th-century Mexican and Mexican American literature; Latino/a studies and literature; border studies; empire studies and (post)-colonial theory; critical race theory.
Marcia Stephenson 
Marcia Stephenson an Associate Professor of Spanish from the School of Languages and Cultures is the College of Liberal Arts 2015 nominee for the Provost’s Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award. She is an exemplary scholar, teacher, and colleague. She is internationally known for her accomplishments in Latin American literary and cultural studies, particularly Andean.
Professor Stephenson will soon publish a second monograph and has a third in progress. She is very adept at intertwining her teaching and research in ways that benefit her graduate students. Her success can be seen in the successes of her students as almost half of her doctoral students have won Purdue Research Foundation grants and many are employed at excellent universities including Baylor, Clemson, and the University of Arizona.
Most significantly, Professor Stephenson’s successful mentorship of many student from under-represented minority groups helps brings ethnic diversity to the professoriate.