Junko Ito, continuing lecturer of Japanese, has named the 2024 California Japanese Language Teacher of the Year by the California Association of Japanese Language Teachers. Ito has taught in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures in L&S since 2010.

Professor Inés Hernández-Ávila, a distinguished poet, translator and artist, has gained international recognition for her scholarship on the cultural and linguistic revitalization movements of Indigenous people. With support from the Public Impact Research Initiative, Hernández-Ávila organized a historic Niimiipuu/Nez Perce delegation to Chiapas, Mexico, in August 2021 to engage with Mayan writers, artists and community activists.