The Department of Languages welcomed the following new faculty members at the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester.
Michael (Mikey) Barrett, Lecturer of American Sign Language
Mikey grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago and graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, and he earned a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Studies from Gallaudet University. He has worked at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), the Rochester School for the Deaf, the University of Rochester, the University of New Mexico, and the New Mexico School for the Deaf’s AmeriCorps program. Mikey’s extensive teaching experience is complimented by his research interests, including Deaf and Disability History, critical pedagogy, and ASL curriculum development. On a personal level, Mikey enjoys doing Bikram and Kundalini yoga, hiking and camping, and reading spiritual/thought-provoking novels.
Mirelly Buitrago-González, Lecturer of Spanish
Mirelly, a native of Puerto Rico, earned a B.A. in Social Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology and an M.A. in Social Sciences and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico. She also received an M.S. in Spanish from Minnesota State University. She holds a Doctorate in Education with a Concentration in Teaching and Learning from Metropolitan University. Mirelly’s research interests include gender violence, the development of models of educational excellence, and the development of social commitment to education.
Daniel García, Lecturer of Spanish
Daniel grew up in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Teaching Spanish Language and Literature from the Universidad Internacional, where he also taught for seven years. He earned his Master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Missouri at Columbia, and he is currently working on an online dual Master’s degree in Education with a concentration in Teaching Spanish Language and Culture from James Madison University and the University of Salamanca. Daniel’s research interests are Mexican literature from the Boom and and Post-Boom periods. He likes to spend time with his wife and work out.
Nora Logue, Lecturer of Spanish
Nora, a native of Nicaragua, earned her B.A. from UACA – Colegium Latinum in Costa Rica and her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She has over 10 years of experience teaching Spanish (elementary, high school, and adult levels). Nora is C-Print certified to caption for hard of hearing students and continues to work for Student Accessibility Services captioning for Clemson students. She enjoys playing tennis, traveling, cooking, and crafting.
Arelis Moore de Peralta, Assistant Professor of Spanish and Health
The Department of Languages welcomed new assistant professor Arelis Moore de Peralta on July 1. She begins a joint tenure-track appointment with the Department of Youth, Family and Community Studies, where she has served as a research assistant professor with the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life since 2011. In her new interdisciplinary role, Arelis teaches three courses in Languages and one course in Youth, Family and Community Studies every year. The Languages courses, which include Spanish for Health Professionals, Technical Spanish for Health Management Professionals, and Health and Hispanic Community, enrich the department’s Language and International Health (L&IH) program. Read more about Arelis’s interdisciplinary appointment here.
Ling Rao, Lecturer of Chinese
Ling Rao earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia, where she taught all levels of Chinese, Asian American Literature, and Western World Literature for six and a half years. Her research interests include late imperial literature and society, Chinese drama (such as the works of Tang Xianzu), Chinese philosophical and religious traditions (such as Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism), and Chinese women. Ling also has extensive experience translating and interpreting between Chinese and English. She enjoys photography, dancing (ballroom, tango, salsa, swing), reading, hiking, and traveling.
Shinichi Shoji, Lecturer of Japanese
Shinichi completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of South Carolina, where he specialized in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition. He also holds an M.A. in History from Winthrop University, where he specialized in Japanese-American History. Shinichi’s research centers on the Japanese sentence and discourse processing of both Japanese native speakers and learners of Japanese as a second language. He is interested in using his research to gain a better understanding of Japanese linguistic aspects that learners have difficulty acquiring, such as differing word order, change of markers and Japanese particles, and vowel epenthesis in katakana loanwords.
Lyudmyla Tsykalova, Graduate Teaching Assistant of Italian
Lyudmyla completed Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in International Economics in her home country of Ukraine. She also earned two Master’s degrees in Palermo, Italy, one in International Cooperation for Development and one in Cultural Events, Heritage and Territory. Lyudmyla is currently working on her Ph.D. in International Family and Community Studies at Clemson. Her research interests include Cultural Heritage, Migration, and Subjective Well-being. This semester she is co-teaching Pathways to Community Service in the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences. In her spare time, Lyudmyla enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, and crafting.
Olga Volkova, Lecturer of Russian
Olga, a native of Russia, earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Blagoveschensk State Pedagogical University, her second Master’s degree from Clemson, and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University Bloomington. Prior to joining the faculty at Clemson, Olga taught at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. Her current research explores the Russian literary diaspora in China. Other interests include nineteenth-century Russian and British novels, Russian and British Romanticism, comparative Romanticism, translation studies, and the Russian Far East. At Clemson, Olga serves as the head of the Russian program, teaching all levels of the language as well as literature and culture courses.
