Project Leaders
Asako Tochika
Lehman College
Asako Tochika is the director of the Japanese Program at Lehman College as well as the coordinator for the Foreign Language Consortium Program between Lehman College and Manhattan College/College of Mount Saint Vincent. She has been teaching Japanese language at Lehman College since 1996 offering courses in all levels of Japanese language, literature and films as well as journalistic writing and translation in Japanese. She is currently serving as the site administrator for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test hosted annually at Lehman College.
Kazuko Saito
LaGuardia Community College
Kazuko Saito is currently an adjunct lecturer in Japanese at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY. She has previously taught Japanese at Brooklyn College, The City College of New York, and Hunter College. She specializes in online language teaching and developed a fully online Japanese language course for Brooklyn College, which she has been teaching since 2017. Ms. Saito has taught college-level Japanese courses in India, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, and Japan. She was selected as one of the first-year participants in the JALEX (Japan Language Exchange) program by the Japan Foundation Center for the Global Partnership, immediately after she passed the “Japanese Language Teaching Competency Test” in 1992. She also served as a Community-Based Instructor at the Japan-America Society of Indiana in 1992-1993.
Maayan Barkan
Hunter College
Dr. Maayan Barkan is currently serving as the director of the Japanese Program at Hunter College, where she has been teaching Japanese language courses since 2007. She has completed her doctorate in linguistics at the Graduate Center (CUNY) in May, 2018. Most Recent publication and presentation: The important role of pragmatic strategies in L2 Japanese teaching and learning, published in the 24th Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum (PJPF)’ proceedings (2018), and Experimental design: Methods for investigating main-clause omission in Japanese and Hebrew, a paper presented at the International Pragmatic Association Conference in Hong Kong (2019). Dr. Barkan is serving as a Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program interviewer at the Consulate General of Japan. She is a recipient of the Innovation in Language Education (ILE) Grant from the CUNY Graduate Centre in 2019-2020.
Shige (CJ) Suzuki
Baruch College
Dr. Shige (CJ) Suzuki is an Associate Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Baruch College, CUNY. He received his Ph.D. in Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz. He specializes in comparative literature, film, and popular culture, teaching courses on Japanese literature, film, and popular culture, as well as the Japanese language. Before coming to Baruch College, he taught Japanese and comparative literature at The University of Colorado at Boulder, Lehigh University, and Elon University. Dr. Suzuki’s current research interests include Japanese speculative fiction in different media forms, examined through the lens of posthumanism, and manga/comics (graphic novels) in conversation with media theories and visual culture studies. Dr. Suzuki’s recent publications can be found at https://baruch-cuny.academia.edu/CJ. At Baruch College, Dr. Suzuki is currently serving as the director of Japanese program and the chair of Asian and Asian American Studies.
Tomonori Nagano
LaGuardia Community College
Dr. Tomonori Nagano is an Associate Professor of Japanese and Linguistics. He received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate Center and his MA in TESOL from New York University. His research interests are second language acquisition and Japanese as a heritage language. Dr. Nagano's articles have been published in various linguistics/applied linguistics journals such as Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, Modern Language Journal, and Foreign Language Annals (See https://www.t-nagano.com/publications/ for the publication list). He is a recipient of the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) award from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2019-2020. He is a certified tester and rater for ACTFL's OPI and AAPPL (Japanese) and is currently serving as an executive board member for the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL) at MLA.
Project Participants
Miho Fujimori
Baruch College
Miho Fujimori is an adjunct lecturer at Baruch College and LaGuardia Community College. She received her BA and MA in Education from Tottori University in Tottori where she was born, obtaining the teaching certificates (high school, middle school, elementary school, special education) and the certificate of curator in Japan. Before teaching Japanese language at the college level, she taught the academic subjects at high school in Japan and middle school & elementary school for the native/heritage Japanese speakers in Michigan and New Jersey. She also served as the Director of Eiken to coordinate the examinations in the eastern US region. Other than the educational professions, she has been working in Finance/Accounting/Risk Management fields in New York metropolitan area since 2008. She is currently working as the Finance Analyst at the US headquarter for one of Japanese global corporations.
Mari Fujimoto
Queens College
Mari Fujimoto is the Director of Japanese Studies at Queens College, CUNY. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Graduate Center, CUNY. She teaches all levels of Japanese, Japanese linguistics, culture and translation theory. For the past two years, she has been a part of Queens College’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) cohort and has incorporated COIL into her courses. She is the author of Ikigai & Other Japanese Words to Live by (Modern books: 2019) and the co-author of NipponGo! An Introduction to Elementary Modern Japanese Language (Kendall Hunt: 2017).
Akiyo Furukawa
Hunter College
Akiyo Furukawa is Associate Director of the Japanese Program at Hunter College. She teaches beginning, intermediate and advanced courses, including Japanese Pragmatics, Business and Reading Comprehension. She received her BA in Sociology at Hunter College and an MA in the TESOL Program at The City College of New York.
Sara Hamada
LaGuardia Community College
Sara Hamada is an Adjunct Lecturer at LaGuardia and Hostos Community Colleges. She also teaches privately through her company, Study with Sara LLC. After receiving a BA in Japanese studies at the University of San Francisco, she taught through the JET Program in Nagasaki and Tokyo. Her current mission is to connect Japanese businesses with young professionals in New York-based colleges.
Yumiko Kakutani
Baruch College
Yumiko Kakutani is an adjunct lecturer at Baruch College and City College of New York. She holds a BA from Keio University in Tokyo. Her interest is in teaching spoken and written Japanese used in formal and business environment.
Emi Kikuchi
The City College of New York
Emi Kikuchi is an adjunct lecturer at The City College of New York and Hunter College. She received BA in Japanese Literature from Jissen Women’s University and holds teaching license for Japanese as national language and Japanese Calligraphy. She has taught Japanese language, calligraphy, and culture at various public schools in NYC. She also teaches kimono, Japanese traditional costume and conducts workshops and demonstrations at schools, libraries, and museums.
Mana Kobuchi-Philip
Queens College
Mana Kobuchi-Philip holds an MA in TESOL and a PhD in linguistics. Her experience of teaching Japanese started in Tokyo and continued in the US, and later in the Netherlands. After coming back from Europe in 2015, she is based in NYC and currently an adjunct assistant professor at Queens College and Baruch College, teaching Japanese language and linguistics.
Hiroko Miyashita
LaGuardia Community College
Hiroko Miyashita is an adjunct lecturer at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) and a part-time assistant professor of Japanese at The New School. She received her MA in Liberal Studies from School for Graduate Studies, Empire State College (SUNY), and BA in Linguistics from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University. She holds her certificate for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, and The World Japanese Language Centre, Sydney, Australia.
Keiko Miyajima
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Keiko Miyajima is an adjunct assistant professor at CUNY John Jay College, CUNY Queens College, Adelphi University, and Hofstra University. She received her Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center, and MA. from the University of Tokyo. She teaches all levels of Japanese language, as well as Japanese culture, literature, and manga/anime. Her current research interests include gender studies, queer studies, and manga. She has also been serving as a translator and translation editor at a Japanese translation company since 2000.
Mari Sakaji
Lehman College
Mari Sakaji is an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College, CUNY. She has been teaching at Lehman College since 2017. Before joining Lehman College, she was the director of Japanese American Social Services, Inc (JASSI) a non-profit social service agency in New York City. She received her BA in Anthropology from Binghamton University and MPA from New York University.
Yoko Sakurai
Hunter College
Yoko Sakurai is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College. She received her MA in Applied Linguistics and Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo. She started her career as a Japanese language teacher in Tokyo, and later she has been teaching at several institutions in New York. From 2012 to 2019, she taught at The Japan Foundation New York as a principal lecturer. She is a certified ACTFL OPI tester.
Mieko Sperbeck
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Mieko Sperbeck is an assistant adjunct professor of Japanese at John Jay College and an adjunct professor of Linguistics at Adelphi University. She received her M. Phil. and Ph.D. in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research interest is in the acquisition of second language speech and Japanese linguistics.
Mamori Sugita
Queens College
Mamori Sugita Hughes is an adjunct assistant professor of Japanese at Queens College. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from CUNY Graduate Center and B.A. from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In addition to teaching at college for over 20 years, Mamori has developed Japanese language learning and assessment materials for publishers and institutions including U.S. Defense Language Institute, Penguin Random House, Berlitz, and Language Garage.
Kyoko Toyama
LaGuardia Community College
Kyoko M. Toyama is a Professor in the Counseling Department and the College Discovery Program at LaGuardia Community College. She received her M.A. and M.Ed. from Teachers College, Columbia University and her Ph.D. from New York University. Dr. Toyama also teaches Japanese at LaGuardia and has been part of a Virtual Exchange with Matsusho Junior College in Nagano, Japan. Her current research interests include inter-racial, inter-ethnic and inter-faith families and identity development. Dr. Toyama is also an avid Japanese Taiko drummer and an instructor who uses drumming as a therapeutic intervention for children and adults with special needs.
