Staff and Advisors

Wang is former Executive Director of Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society (2006–2009) and Deputy Director of the National Foreign Language Center, University of Maryland (2009–2012). Her work is published in books and peer reviewed journals, including Flying with Chinese, a series of textbooks for K–6 learners of Chinese.

Wang serves as an advisor to the Ministry of Education in Singapore on the Mother Tongue Language and Chinese Primary Curriculum Projects, and works with the Maryland State Department of Education to develop Elementary STEM-focused World Language Curricular Modules, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative.

Peyton is also a former Spanish and linguistics teacher in high school and university programs. She is co-editor of two major volumes on heritage languages in the United States: Handbook of Heritage, Community, and Native American Languages in the United States: Research, Policy, and Educational Practice (2014) and Heritage Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource (2002) and of a special issue of the Heritage Language Journal (2013) on the vitality of heritage languages in the United States. In collaboration with other language educators and researchers, she co-established the Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages and is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Heritage Language Journal.

In this position, he oversees the largest annual conference on Mandarin language education in North America, whose keynote roster includes former prime minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, former US defense secretary Chuck Hagel, and former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. He initiated and oversees the support of 100 pairs of US-China sister schools. Jeff also advises education leaders in both China and the U.S. on building innovative, substantive, and mutually beneficial partnerships—including the planning for the annual official U.S.–China State and Province Chief Education Officers Dialogue.

Jeff speaks and writes frequently on the importance and practicalities of youth and young leaders exchange in the context of an interconnected world. Before joining Asia Society in 2007, Jeff worked at the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and on the state’s academic exchange initiatives with Germany and China. He speaks English, Chinese and German, and has lived and worked in New York, Shanghai, Heidelberg, and Hartford, Connecticut.

Before her work at Asia Society, Stewart was the Director of Education Programs at Carnegie Corporation in New York. She also served as a senior education advisor at the UN and was a visiting scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has undergraduate and graduate degrees from Oxford University and is the author of A World-Class Education: Learning from International Models of Excellence and Innovation. She is the recipient of the Harold McGraw and NAFSA: Association of International Educators prizes for her work in international education.

Maquita has worked closely with the Chinese program team to develop effective classroom management strategies for new immersion teachers. She has more than 19 years of teaching and administrative experience, including 15 years in the Fairfax County Public School system and eight years as an elementary school teacher. She has a Master of Arts in Educational Technology Leadership from George Washington University, a Master of Teaching, Elementary Education from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an administrative certification in Curriculum and Administration from George Mason University.

Bacon also directs the K–12 portion of the NSEP-funded K–16 Oregon Chinese Flagship grant in collaboration with the University of Oregon along with 12 Confucius Classrooms in PPS. In collaboration with the Rand Corporation and American Councils, he is involved in three studies on the Effectiveness of Dual Language Immersion on Student Achievement in PPS, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. Bacon frequently presents and conducts workshops at local and national conferences on various aspects of immersion education and currently serves as President of the Dual Language Immersion Special Interest Group of ACTFL. He has 19 years of teaching and administrative experience in immersion education.

Berg is a seasoned PS–12 global educator with background in traditional public school, charter school, and private international school settings. With a strong foundation in successful classroom teaching, she has expertise in curriculum design and delivery, the creation of internal and external assessments, teacher training, performance evaluation, and maximizing student learning. After twenty years in educational administration, specializing in new and developing schools, she strives to be a transformative leader who focuses on establishing systems, building effective and efficient teams, and developing strong relationships among all stakeholders.

CAIS, the nation's oldest Chinese/English dual language immersion school, is located in San Francisco, California. Bissell has also led CAIS’s strategic initiative to develop language-based experiential learning programs for CAIS students in China and Taiwan. He is the former resident director of School Year Abroad (SYA) in Beijing China, chair of the Board of Trustees at Western Academy of Beijing, and adjunct professor of Chinese language at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has lived in China and Taiwan for a total of 15 years.

Since 2007, Dr. Chao has directed STARTALK high school and teacher training programs at Hunter. In 2008, she founded the Hunter College M.A. in the Teaching of Chinese program. Dr. Chao has been the director for the Hunter Chinese Flagship Center since 2011. She was president of the national Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) in 2013. Dr. Chao is currently working on an online course management system, Chinese for All. Her research interests include second language acquisition, teacher education, and the history of Chinese language instruction in the US.

Fortune's publications include two co-edited research volumes on immersion education, a research-to-practice handbook on struggling immersion learners, and articles in journals such as Foreign Language Annals, Modern Language Journal, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, and the Journal of Content-Based and Immersion Education (JICB). In 2016, she received the U.S. Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education. Recent research examines achievement and language and character literacy acquisition in early total Mandarin immersion programs.

She also works with LinguaFolio, dual language/immersion programs, and global education initiatives pertaining to language. (There are over 120 dual language/immersion programs in North Carolina, which encompass 7 languages—Cherokee, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Japanese, and Spanish—across 33 districts, 3 charter schools, and 6 independent schools.) She is a doctoral candidate at North Carolina State University, and her dissertation research explores the reasons why local policymakers decide to launch a dual language/immersion program. She serves as the President of the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL).

She is director of NYU's Project for Developing Chinese Language Teachers (DCLT) and former program director of NYU’s STARTALK Immersion Training Program for Teachers of Chinese (Grades 1-6). Harvey is co-author (with Pauline Huang) of Rhythms and Tones: Inventive Songs & Chants for Learning Chinese (Chinasprout, 2010), and Rhythms and Tones 2 (Chinasprout, 2012).

Formerly employed as a marketing executive of companies such as Nabisco International, AirTouch, and Weightwatchers.com, Sharon and her husband are now fully devoted to the entrepreneurial mission of HudsonWay. The school has grown to encompass preschool, elementary, and summer camps in two locations, along with a family immersion summer camp in China.

In 2004, Dr. Lin was selected to serve on the Chinese AP Task Force Committee for the College Board, and in 2005, she served as Content Advisor for the AP Chinese Program. From 2008–2012, she served on the AP Chinese Curriculum and Assessment Development Committee. She serves on the World Language Advisory Committee and the Academy Assembly Committee for the College Board. Her publications include co-authorship of the CLASS Professional Standards for K–12 Chinese Teachers. She is the recipient of MaFLA’s Distinguished Service Award, NECTFL’s Nelson H. Brooks Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Profession, and ACTFL’s Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in K–12 Foreign Language Education.

Chris previously served as Director of Education and Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society. During his time at Asia Society, Chris created a collaborative national network of almost 40,000 students in more than 100 schools in 28 states that teach Chinese and their partner schools across 23 provinces in China. He is a member of the board of trustees of Chinese American International School in San Francisco.

Chris is the author of New Ways of Seeing: How Multilingualism Opens Our Eyes and Trains Our Minds for a Complex World (Asia Society, 2016), and co-author of Structures of Mandarin Chinese for Speakers of English I & II (Peking University Press, 2012-2013), Chinese Language Learning in the Early Grades (Asia Society, 2012), and the Chinese for Tomorrow series (Cheng & Tsui, 2007-2009). Chris was a speaker at the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival, has spoken on Chinese language education at the British Museum in London, and was the recipient of the U.S. State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award, citing outstanding speeches written for two U.S. ambassadors to Japan.

Tenured as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer in 2003, Chris served as a press officer for multiple visits to Asia by two US presidents and two secretaries of state. He was the founding director of the High School for Language and Diplomacy and a founding member of the faculty at the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies. Both schools were members of the Asia Society International Studies Schools Network, a national initiative to create globally focused public schools with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A magna cum laude graduate of Columbia University, Chris holds advanced degrees in East Asian literature from the University of Chicago and in applied linguistics from New York University. Chris is a lifelong learner of classical and modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, among other languages, and an essayist whose work has appeared in print and online in Foreign Policy, AGNI, The Aspen Institute and Education Week, among many other publications and websites.

Dr. Lu serves as Department Chair of Computer Technologies at Delaware Technical Community College in Wilmington, Delaware. In addition to his computer teaching and department managing, he is actively involved with Chinese language teaching in the heritage school system in both teaching and administrative positions. Dr. Lu has served as Chinese history teacher; language teacher, where most of his students received a 5 on the AP Chinese exam; curriculum director, where he developed and implemented aligned curriculum using ACTFL’s language proficiency levels for both heritage and non-heritage tracks; vice principal; and now the principal of the Chinese School of Delaware. Through the years, he has made several presentations at international, national, and regional conferences and local schools regarding his research and practice in Chinese heritage schools. He has also served in leadership positions in many language organizations such as the ACTFL Heritage Language SIG, ACS (Association of Chinese Schools), and NCACLS (National Council of Association of Chinese Language Schools).

After working for a nonprofit organization, The American Forum for Global Education, Yongling joined the faculty of Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, where she built the Chinese language program and taught history and also taught Chinese, from beginning to advanced levels, to students from grades 6–12. In July 2011, she joined the team as a curriculum design specialist in preparation for the opening in the fall 2012 of Avenues, which has a Chinese Immersion Program for Nursery to Grade 4 and a Chinese as Second Language program for Grades 5 to 12.

In this role, she also taught in the Chinese program she initiated and built over a 7-year period and led the development and expansion of the K–9 Arabic and Spanish FLES programs. In 2011, the school was named a Confucius Classroom. She is an experienced mentor and has worked with teachers from Peru, Mexico, Jordan, Egypt, Taiwan, and China. In 2013, she was invited by the American Council of Teachers of Critical Languages Program to assist in training for school administrators, host international guest teachers, and participate on the teacher selection team doing live interviews in Egypt. She has served on two Utah Chinese Curriculum Advisory Councils and has a passion for designing curriculum.

In 2009, Glastonbury was named one of the first 20 Confucius Classroom cohorts. Glastonbury has also been funded for nine STARTALK summer programs including Arabic, Chinese, and Russian teachers and students. Rita currently serves on the STARTALK Taskforce. She is past president of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL), the National Association of District Supervisors of Foreign Languages (NADSFL), and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). As president of ACTFL, she had the honor of addressing a Senate Sub Committee to present ten legislative priorities for language learning in the United States. She is also past president of the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA) and former co-chair of the K-16 Foreign Language Teachers of Western Massachusetts Collaborative. She is a member of the LILL Leadership Team. In 2013, Rita was honored to be awarded the NADSFL–Pearson Supervisor of the Year award.

During her tenure at the Center for Applied Linguistics, Rhodes directed numerous language education studies and recently completed the third in a series of federally funded national surveys of K–12 foreign language instruction that provide a portrait of language teaching across the country (Foreign Language Teaching in U.S. Schools: Results of a National Survey, Rhodes & Pufahl, 2010). She has also authored or co-authored Foreign Language Teaching: What the U.S. Can Learn from Other Countries, Elementary School Foreign Language Teaching: Lessons Learned Over Three Decades (Foreign Language Annals, spring 2014), and Language Immersion: Celebrating 40 Years of Growth (2012). She is a founding member and former Executive Secretary of the National Network for Early Language Learning.

She also was an assistant professor at The Ohio State University, developing pre-service and international teachers. Prior to joining the Flagship, Robinson served 11 years as World Languages Consultant at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) and was recognized by the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages as the 2010 State Supervisor of the Year. At ODE, she facilitated the development of standards and curriculum and provided leadership on projects, including a U.S. Department of Education FLAP grant to develop a model K–4 Chinese curriculum. She also led a taskforce on the institutional impact of the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning through a Title VI International Research and Studies grant to ACTFL.

In his work as Assistant Director of Content and Learning at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), he began that state's implementation of the Common Core State Standards and coordinating the areas of English language arts, mathematics, international education, and world languages. He earlier served as the DPI state-wide consultant for world languages. Sandrock taught Spanish for 16 years in middle school and high school and authored The Keys to Assessing Language Performance and Planning Curriculum for Learning World Languages. He previously served ACTFL as a board member and president and received ACTFL’s Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education, K–12.

Minnetonka offers the same rigorous curriculum in three languages, and student progress in the target language is measured by ACTFL-aligned assessments. Minnetonka is a leader in the use of technology, with over 5,000 iPads deployed in grades 7 through 12. Minnetonka is a leader in innovation, using crowdsourcing software to identify new solutions that have the potential to improve current programming or to create new markets for added revenue. Based on this work, Minnetonka launched a new VANTAGE program for profession-based learning, a virtual-learning platform, Tonka Online; and a K–12 Computer Programming curriculum called KidsCode! Schneider has served as Director of Curriculum and is a former high school principal from Napa, California.

These sites are located at campuses of the California State University, independent colleges and universities, and county offices of education. Silva is responsible for providing leadership to the Project’s programs statewide and for overseeing evaluation of the programs outcomes at each site. As a former member of the California Curriculum Commission, he chaired the Foreign Language Subject Matter Committee and was a member of several other committees that advise the State Board of Education on a variety of language-related issues. He has chaired several state adoptions of instructional materials for Foreign Language and English Language Development students and oversaw the development of criteria for the role of technology in supporting the teaching of languages.

Dr. Spring was also director of the ASU Confucius Institute and the Chinese Language Program. Her research interests are divided between medieval Chinese literature (especially Six Dynasties to Tang prose and rhetoric) and current issues in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL). In that area, her focus is on curricular design and implementation, content-based instruction, intercultural communication, online communities, and other issues related to developing Superior Level language proficiency. Dr. Spring has played a leadership role in defining and disseminating information about Chinese Language Flagship programs both nationally and internationally. She has also developed models for collaboration between the Language Flagship, Confucius Institutes, State Departments of Education, and faculty and students in university-level Chinese programs and in other academic departments and units across campuses.

Van Houten also worked for 15 years as world language supervisor for the Kentucky Department of Education. She is past president of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL), the National Association of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages (NCSSFL), and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). She is also past president of the Kentucky World Language Association (KWLA), which honored her with a lifetime achievement award. As ACTFL president, she facilitated a Memorandum of Agreement between ACTFL and the European Council of Modern Language and initiated the ACTFL Global Engagement trips for teachers. Jacque was one of the early developers of LinguaFolio, co-project director for the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements, and led the ACTFL task force for the Can-Do Statements for Intercultural Communication for Learned Languages. She was a lead teacher for the College Board Guest Teacher program at Stanford and UCLA and served on the STARTALK Advisory Board. Her awards include the French government’s Ordres des Palmes Academique, NCSSFL–Pearson Supervisor of the Year award, and the ACTFL Florence Steiner award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education.

She writes the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council blog. Weise studied Chinese at the University of Washington. Today she is a technology reporter at USA Today, based in the paper’s San Francisco office, though she has had opportunities to report from China, Singapore, and Taiwan.