Hassan Nitami
Arabic

Hassan is a native of Marrakech, Morocco, and the Lauder Institute is pleased to welcome him to the community. Hassan also taught English, in addition to teaching the Arabic and Moroccan dialect to foreigners and Peace Corps Volunteers at the American Language Center of Marrakesh. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2002/2003 while teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (NELC). He continues to teach at NELC while fulfilling his duties at Lauder.

Dr. Theresa Jen
Chinese

Dr. Chang-whei Theresa Jen is a renowned scholar, a distinguished educator in her field, and an internationally recognized consultant. She is a Fulbright Scholar and recipient of the National Endowment of Humanities award.  Her early research in cross-cultural studies and sociolinguistics spawned her instinct to teach.  She began at Princeton University and Bryn Mawr College, both institutions at which she received the high honor of the Distinguished Professor award.  Dr. Jen
has since been with the Lauder Institution which she joined in 2000.

In addition to the educational field, she has served as consultant to the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages, the Educational Testing Services, and The College Board.  She initiated an effort with each of these organizations to review college language programs, national examinations, among various international education projects. In 2006, she was appointed US Board of Examiner to the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.  Her work has awarded her with the European Council of International Schools Excellence in Teaching and Achievement award. 

Claire Babanoury-Grange
French

A French native, Claire has lived and worked in Germany, Belgium and France before coming to the US. She holds an MA Degree in Language and Translation, and degrees in English and German Languages and Literatures and in Teaching French as a Foreign Language. Claire’s research interests lie in Business Language Teaching Practices, Intercultural Relations, and Translation. She joined the Lauder Institute in 1999. Since January 2006 she is the University of Pennsylvania Business Languages Group Coordinator. The mission of this group is to create the best teaching practice in the field of business languages and business cultures education.

Dr. Susanne Shields
German

Susanne was born in Frankfurt, Germany and received a degree in Pedagogy from Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt. After moving to the US, Susanne received her Master’s in German Languages and Literature from Penn State University and a PhD in German Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She is especially interested in cross-cultural communication, focusing on the relationship between foreign language study and cultural understanding in the business context, and has done research in this field. Helping students to understand German culture and to communicate effectively is very rewarding to her.

Emiko Nagatomo
Japanese

Emiko was born in Kyoto, Japan and received her formal education in Japan until she graduated from college, and worked as an executive assistant to President and Chairman in a US-Japan joint venture firm for several years. After coming to the US, she obtained a Master’s degree in Foreign Language Education and pursued her Ph.D. in curriculum and technology. However, an unexpected sickness forced her to leave the program. Prior to teaching at the Lauder Institute, she taught Japanese at Drexel University for seven years and in 1998 she joined the Lauder Institute. She is also a director for the Summer Immersion Program.  Her specializations include intercultural communication, business language education and CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) technology. She holds a teaching certificate for Tea-Ceremony and Flower Arrangement.  She has recently coauthored a business Japanese text book, published in Japan.

Cristina Maki
Portuguese

Dr. Maria Bourlatskaya
Russian

Maria directs the Russian Language and Culture Program at the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bourlatskaya has been a lecturer in the University’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures since 1992. She specializes in teaching advanced Russian content-based courses for business professionals with the use of film and literature, as well as political and business materials. She has also developed and taught a number of courses for heritage students at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bourlatskaya received her Ph.D. in Russian Literature from the University of Pennsylvania and her Master's degree in philology from Moscow State University. Recently she has completed a two-year Management Certificate Program at the Wharton School. Her current research interest lies in techniques for training business professionals to develop and assess cross-cultural competency.

“ The intellectual curiosity, energy, and passion of Lauder students are a powerful motivating force for me as a teacher, and the flow of ideas arising from the varied cultural backgrounds and educational experience of both the faculty and the students provides a constant intellectual stimulus and an invaluable source of learning.”

David Robinson
Spanish

Born in Chile, David joined the Lauder Institute in 2000. He received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Manchester (England) and M.A. (Area Studies) from the Institute of Latin American Studies (now the Institute for the Study of the Americas) at the University of London. After completing his MA, he worked in London for the then Bank of London & South America as an economist; later as a journalist for The Economist magazine; at a consultancy (in the oil industry); and as a journalist for The Petroleum Economist. He then worked for Standard Chartered Bank as an economist in London, before he was sent to Madrid to head their operations in Spain and Portugal. Later he held teaching positions in Madrid at the British Council and the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales of the Fundación Juan MarcDh. He completed his doctoral studies in Spanish Linguistics/Philology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also taught Spanish language. He went on to teach Spanish at the University of Georgia (at Athens, GA) before joining Lauder Institute.

Cristian Aquino-Sterling
Spanish

Cristian was born in the Dominican Republic. He received a BA in Western Philosophy from Fordham University and a MA in Latin American and Spanish Literatures from Columbia University. He is currently a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University (ASU), and was a recipient of ASU’s Graduate College Dissertation Fellowship Award (2006-2007). In addition to Spanish language courses, Cristian has designed and facilitated courses in Multicultural Education, Language Variation in Schools and Society (Sociolinguistics), Structured English Immersion, and the Theory and Practice of Bilingual Education. His academic and research interests relate to discourse and ideology in scholarly critiques of federal education policy, the practice of schooling/education in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts, and curriculum design and pedagogies for teaching foreign languages and intercultural competencies.

Ya-Chuan Yu
Chinese

Ya-Chuan Yu joined the Lauder Institute in 2005. Ms. Yu received her B.A. in Chinese Literature and M.A. in TESOL from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. Ms. Yu’s academic interests focus on cross-cultural awareness and communications, Chinese language and culture for business practitioners, and second language acquisitions.