This fall, we have added a few new wonderful faces to our team! We have a new graduate assistant, intern, and a visiting Fulbright researcher with us at the Applied Language Institute. They have embraced the culture of our department quickly, and welcomed everything with bright and smiling faces. We are happy to have them, and enthusiastic to share more about them so you can know them too.
Anh Vo: ALI’s 24-25 Graduate Assistant
Anh is an international student coming from vibrant Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is pursuing a masters in English with a Manuscript, Print Culture, and Editing emphasis here at UMKC.
Before coming to Kansas City, Anh graduated with a bachelors in English at the University of Wyoming! Vietnamese is her mother tongue, and English is Anh’s second language. She also speaks a bit of Chinese (she minored in Chinese at the UW), and would love the chance to practice it!
Anh is excited to be working with our students coming from many countries around the world. She enjoys learning about different cultures and other languages, and hopes she will connect with students while helping them in the office and planning our semesterly activities!
Outside of work and academics, Anh has a deep passion for world cuisine and loves to cook traditional Vietnamese dishes, especially phở and spring rolls. If you have a favorite food, be sure to tell her all about it, as she would love to hear!
Outside of her hobby of cooking, Anh has enjoyed exploring Kansas City and its architecture (another special interest of hers)! The mixture of architecture in the city of new modern buildings and historic, old buildings blending together create what she describes as “a cozy yet lively Midwestern” feel, which fascinates her.
After graduating, Anh hopes to find work in publishing, specifically in editing or copywriting. She also has an interest in exploring teaching English as A Second Language (ESL), so, working at the ALI as our graduate assistant is the perfect match.
She still has lots of time with us, however, and is very excited to be with the ALI this academic year. Anh is a very wonderful and vibrant addition to the Applied Language Institute, and we are lucky to have her.
Hannah Volkland: ALI’s Fall 2024 Intern
Born in Texas and raised on the sunny beaches of Laguna Beach, California, Hannah is also not native to Kansas City. While she enjoys the vibrant mornings on the ocean and the bright slopes of a snowy mountain-side that California has to offer, Hannah finds Kansas City to be a very warm place. Hannah has been living here for a year already, and while she is not a local to KC herself, much of her family is. Over 20 (yes, twenty!) of her family are UMKC alumni, so, Kansas City and Volker campus quickly became home to her!
Hannah started working in English as a Second Language (ESL) at 16-years-old, after returning from a study abroad experience in Nara, Japan. While attending the University of California, Davis for her undergrad, Hannah spent lots of time working with international teaching assistants. Following her graduation, Hannah studied for a Teaching English as a foreign language certification (TEFL). Now, she is pursuing a masters in Higher Education here at UMKC, with the ultimate goal of continuing to serve international students!
Hannah also spent 6 years studying Japanese, and loves the cadence and form of Japanese. She has a deep appreciation for the degrees of respect that different sentence endings allow in the language.
Outside of her education and work, Hannah enjoys taking to the water on a paddle board, spending time with family and pets, and making the most out of her AMC+ membership to see as many movies as she can in-theaters.
Hannah will be spending the fall semester with us here at the ALI, learning about how our department runs and taking the opportunity to learn about English Language Programs. With her time at the ALI, she hopes to meet students and learn about how a positive university experience can impact language acquisition, as well as get the chance to meet and work with UMKC’s international partners. As she puts it, the Applied Language Institute is “a hub of internationalization in Kansas City. We form bonds with key stakeholders, colleagues in other departments, and students with individual dreams in the course of our work. The ALI is a generative force for international relations at UMKC.” Hannah has spent lots of time in our classrooms and meetings, seeing just how internationalization plays an important role in education and UMKC’s community.
Clearly, Hannah is very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with everyone at the Applied Language Institute. We are thrilled to welcome her and share the knowledge we can, and learn from her as well!
Cristina Nazaru: Visiting Fulbright Researcher
All the way from Moldova, this semester we have a visiting Fulbright Researcher with us here at the Applied Language Institute! Meet Cristina, who hails from a small country in Europe that many have likely not heard of, but everyone comes to love once they discover it. Moldova is known for its delicious food, fruits, and wine and welcoming people. As well as, it is known for having educators that are driven to keep up with the latest trends in education and technology.
Cristina is one of those forward-driven educators. She studied English Language and Literature at Ion Creangǎ State Pedagogical University in Moldova, holds an MA in English Philology, and a micro-degree in Using Technology in Education from Tartu University in Estonia. Cristina has been teaching English as a foreign language in many contexts her entire adult life.
Her love for language acquisition began when she was a student herself. Apart from her mother tongue (Romanian) and the English she teaches, Cristina also speaks Russian, and a bit of Spanish and French. What she enjoys most about English is that she believes it can open any door for anyone motivated enough to master it.
Despite being an English teacher for 22 years, and traveling around Europe plenty, Cristina’s first visit to an English-speaking country is at this time, here in the heart of the Midwest, USA. She is excited to be able to boast about her American adventure when she returns home.
The Applied Language Institute is a perfect match for Cristina’s background. While at the ALI, Cristina aims to learn about American culture, traditions and teaching practices. She is also excited to be able to meet and interact with students from around the world, and learn about their cultures as well. Cristina has been an enthusiastic addition to our team, and we hope she will grow and learn in her short time here.
Some other interesting facts about Cristina include that she is really passionate about coffee. In Moldova, she would have 5-6 cups of hot, black coffee a day! She has found it surprising that when ordering coffee here in the United States, she is asked if she would like her beverage cold. This is not common practice in her home country.
Cristina also enjoys reading, and has gone as long as 16 hours straight bingeing a book! She also really loves the winter and snow, so hopefully she will get a sneak peek at winter in Kansas City as fall slides away…
While in Kansas City, Cristina has taken the time to explore the public libraries, as well as the UMKC Miller Nichols Library and its book robot. She finds our libraries, along with the diversity in the city, to be the most fascinating things about Kansas City so far. She also hopes to try the world-renowned barbecue in Kansas City (feel free to give her any recommendations) while here.
Overall, she is grateful to be a part of the Roo community here and looks forward to making lasting connections this semester. We welcome her expertise and presence here at the ALI!
A warm welcome to all our new team members! We are thrilled to have you here.
Applied Language Institute: The Blog 
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