Our Team
Song Jiang
Director
Dr Song Jiang is the Director of the Chinese Language Flagship Center at UHM and an Associate Professor of Chinese in EALL, specializing in Chinese linguistics — with an emphasis on cognitive linguistics, contrastive analysis, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and Chinese language pedagogy. Dr Jiang has extensive expertise in teaching Advanced/Superior level language skills to DOD employees and is a certified ILR Oral Proficiency Tester. He periodically teaches undergraduate-level survey courses on the Chinese language, lexicon, and studies of Chinese character, in addition to graduate-level courses on contemporary Chinese linguistics, second language acquisition, teaching methods, as well as research seminars on special Chinese linguistic topics. Dr Jiang frequently offers workshops on Chinese pedagogy, teaching material development, and is actively involved in collaborative projects on developing performance-based, content-based, and project-based language teaching pedagogies and curricular materials.
Min-Qi Chen
Visiting Teacher
Min-Qi is a visiting teacher from National Tsing Hua University and the coordinator of the UHM-NTHU Chinese Language Summer Program. She also serves as a Mandarin lecturer and has over a decade of teaching experience at universities in Poland and Taiwan. Currently, she is a Ph.D candidate in Teaching Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language at National Tsing Hua University. Her research interests include intercultural communication and designing and developing a cultural curriculum.
Jeno Calara
Student Helper
Jeno Calara is a senior at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, majoring in Finance and minoring in Chinese Language. As a dedicated student ambassador of the Center for Chinese Language Education (CCLE), he actively promotes the study of Chinese language across campus. In addition, Jeno serves as the Treasurer of the newly established Chinese Club, where he oversees budgeting and organizes fundraisers to support the club’s initiatives. Jeno has prior experience with club activities and planning through the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s Accounting Club (AC). Through these previous experiences Jeno was able to share his insights on how the new Chinese Club should be established. With plans to pursue an MBA in Finance after graduation, Jeno aims to leverage his linguistic expertise and cultural insight to further expand into markets in Asia.
Paul Porter
Tech Assistant
Paul Porter is an alumnus of the UH Manoa Chinese Flagship program. He completed the capstone year studying Chinese at National Chengchi Univeresity in Taipei, Taiwan. Paul will be continuing his academic journey as an MA student in the Second Language Studies MA program at UH. He is currently serving as a tech assistant at the Center for Chinese Language Education (CCLE).
Katherine Kaw
Volunteer
Katherine Kaw is an undergraduate student at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, double-majoring in Economics and Chinese Language. Katherine is the Vice President of the Chinese Club and oversees recruitment, event planning, and member support. Outside of Chinese-related activities, Katherine serves as a Student Ambassador for the UHM College of Social Sciences and the Transcending Barriers to Success in Economics bridge program. She is also an active member of the Mānoa Economics Association. Through her involvement in student-serving organizations, Katherine seeks to encourage others to engage in continuous personal development, cross-cultural exchange, and interdisciplinary understandings of people and cultural phenomena.
Maxwell Koenen
Volunteer
Maxwell Koenen is a PhD student in the language and linguistics track of the Chinese Section of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. He is currently serving as an Introductory Chinese instructor at UHM as well as an editor at the Center for Chinese Language Education (CCLE). He holds a master’s degree in Translation and Interpretation from National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan. Immediately prior to entering the PhD program, he was a high school teacher in California, teaching English, History and Government. His research interests include comparative linguistics, cognitive linguistics and translation. He will continue in his capacity as an instructor for a section of Introductory Chinese in Spring Semester 2025.