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SEAFLI-Indonesian 2026 Instructors
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SEAFLI-Vietnamese 2026 Instructors
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SEAFLI 2026 Language Partners
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Erlin Barnard
SEAFLI-Indonesian Pedagogy Coordinator
Dr. Erlin Barnard is the SEAFLI Pedagogy Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She is the Pedagogy Coordinator for Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UW-Madison. She supervises LCTL instructors and oversees their pedagogy development.
Prior to coming to UW-Madison, Dr. Barnard worked both at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and the National University of Singapore in language instruction, program administration and teacher training. She has conducted workshops on foreign language pedagogy and materials development for various institutions in the U.S, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Singapore. She has also participated in a number of program and curriculum reviews, and materials development projects for languages of Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Dr. Barnard as Pedagogy Coordinator works with the SEAFLI Director to implement best pedagogical practices into the SEAFLI program. An important focus for Dr. Barnard is to work with the in-country faculty to develop a unifying curricular design of the US-based and Indonesia-based segments of the program. She facilitates collaboration between UW-Madison and the in-country institution to outline syllabi and compile curricular materials in order to ensure smooth articulation between the summer and fall programs.
In consultation with the SEAFLI Director and the in-country Director, she conducts pedagogy workshops that offer professional development and result in the development of proficiency-based instructional materials for the SEAFLI programs. Through classroom observations, she oversees the implementation of curricular materials in the classroom and provides support and feedback for the instructors’ professional development. Dr. Barnard also supervises the Indonesian teaching staff who come to UW-Madison for training and teaching opportunities.
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Janpanit Surasin
SEAFLI-Thai Pedagogy Coordinator
As the only instructor of Thai language in the department, Dr. Surasin teaches all levels of Thai including periodic independent studies for intern students in Thailand. She is also an active participant in ACTFL OPI Workshop and various Southeast Asian Language staff development projects sponsored by SEALC aiming to create proficiency assessment tools and language learning materials. Prior to her work at UW-Madison, Dr. Surasin taught English language courses and graduate courses in Teaching English as an International/Global Language at Chulalongkorn University and Burapha University in Thailand.
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Hong Thi Dinh
SEAFLI-Vietnamese Pedagogy Coordinator
As the Senior Lecturer of Vietnamese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Hong Dinh has been teaching all levels of Vietnamese at UW Madison since 2008. In addition to her regular duties during the academic year, she has also served as the Coordinator of Vietnamese at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) since 2017.
Hong Dinh is a highly committed educator with more than two decades of experience teaching Vietnamese as a second or foreign language in higher education. Before she began working at UW-Madison, she taught Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City for the US and German consulates as well as to international visitors.
Hong’s academic interest lies in materials development pedagogy. She has been actively involved in numerous projects to develop instructional materials and assessments in Vietnamese. She authored oral proficiency materials for elementary Vietnamese, reading materials for advanced Vietnamese, and served as one of the co-authors of the Oral Proficiency Guidelines for Vietnamese, an international collaborative project organized by the Southeast Asian Language Council (SEALC). In 2022, she led a team of Vietnamese instructors from across the US and Vietnam in developing standardized reading assessment tools, organized by SEALC.
Hong Dinh was awarded the Dr. Brenda Pfachler Award of Excellence (2013), Center for Education Opportunity, UW-Madison, USA.
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Purnima Thakur
RFLI Program Coordinator
Purnima Thakur is the Program Coordinator for the Regional Flagship Language Initiatives (RFLI) servicing Southeast Asian (SEAFLI) program. She also serviced the now retired South Asian (SAFLI), and Turkish (TURFLI) programs. She holds an MPhil in Linguistics (Graduate Center, CUNY) with a focus on Second Language Acquisition and Phonology. She is certified to teach German as a foreign language (Grünes Diplom, Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan, Pune), and English as a Second Language (CELTA, New York).
Purnima grew up in Pune, India, speaking Marathi, Hindi, and English. Before moving to the United States, she taught German at the Max Mueller Bhavan, Pune for two years. In the United States, she has taught ESL, Hindi, Marathi, and Introductory Linguistics. A language teacher at heart, she is also an avid language learner and has studied some French, Italian, Gujarati, and Punjabi. Outside of work, you will find her catching up on the latest movies and shows, reading poetry, or taking long walks.
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Kylie Holland
SEASSI Program Coordinator & RFLI-Culture Initiative Program Manager
Kylie Holland is the Program Coordinator for the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI). Prior to her position at SEASSI, she was the coordinator for the Regional Flagship Language Initiatives (RFLI) servicing the Southeast Asian (SEAFLI, formerly IFLI), South Asian (SAFLI), and Turkish (TURFLI) programs. She worked internationally from 2015 – 2020 as an English Education Volunteer with the Peace Corps and worked as Resident Director of the SEAFLI (formerly IFLI) program at the State University of Malang in Indonesia. Ms. Holland also works as the Program Manager for the RFLI-Culture Initiative overseeing the content development and review teams creating open-sourced materials focusing on intercultural competency.
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Laura Hammond
Director, Language Program Office (LPO)
Laura Hammond is the Founding Director of the Language Program Office (LPO – launched in January 2021) and won the Chancellor’s Award for excellence in leadership in 2020. She has been the SASLI program coordinator since the inaugural Summer of SASLI in 2003. Laura has a BFA in ceramic art from the University of Washington-Seattle and is working towards an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Laura has been overseas for work, travel, and education. As an art student, Laura completed a semester in Rome with the University of Washington – Seattle. Besides learning how to drink Chianti and order pizza by the ounce, Laura traveled throughout Italy delving into the art and architecture. From 1990-1991, she taught English in Taipei, Taiwan and travelled extensively throughout Asia, where she learned Mandarin and Indonesian. In 1986-1987, she also lived and worked in London as a work exchange student on the Council for International Educational Exchange. These travel experiences have given her an important edge in understanding the specific challenges of language acquisition as well as the need for language skills for any student who is interested in study, work, research or travel abroad.
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Anne Naparstek
Associate Director, Language Program Office (LPO)
Anne Naparstek is the Associate Director of the Language Program Office, focusing on administration and student services across all programs housed within LPO. Prior to this role, Anne served as the Program Coordinator for the South Asia Summer Language Institute (SASLI) for ten years. During her time with SASLI, she also worked with the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS), the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS), the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies (ANHS), Project GO, and the South Asian Flagship Languages Initiative (SAFLI), working with students and scholars to obtain funding for both language study and research. Prior to joining UW, Anne studied and lived abroad in a variety of settings including Taipei, Taiwan; Cape Town, South Africa; and Kyras Vrisi, Greece.