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Kyle Maclauchlan
Academy Director Hello, everyone! I’m sure you are excited to join this year’s Japanese Academy, and we are all excited to meet you. My name is Kyle Maclauchlan. I lived in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan for 11 years. Now, I want to share my love of Japan with students here in my home state of Virginia. I hope that the academy will encourage and empower you as you experience Japan’s language and culture. While in Japan, I taught English at Miyagi Gakuin University, became a nationally recognized author, and was the first English speaking radio announcer for Japanese Professional Baseball. My hobbies were singing in a rock band, playing flute in the suzume odori festival, and eating as many kinds of ramen as I could find. Every day in Japan, I felt that speaking the language opened doors to wonderful opportunities for me– chances to try new things, go to new places, learn fascinating information, and meet amazing people. I hope I can now hand the key to those doors to our Academy students. Currently, I teach Japanese at Randolph-Macon College, and I direct Suzume Bachi, the only Suzume Odori festival team outside Japan! Our students recently performed at the Sakura Matsuri festival in Washington, D.C. -- we're having a lot of fun sharing Miyagi's festival culture here in the U.S.! While back in the states, I have also become a really big fan of origami! There is a saying in Okinawan dialect: いちゃりばちょーでー！ It means, “Meet once, and we are family.” I hope that our time together in the academy will offer us all an opportunity to build bonds of friendship. After all, that is what language is all about – building bridges through communication and understanding. Once again, welcome to the academy! |
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Emma Grenfell
Lead Teacher みなさん、こんにちは！ My name is Emma Grenfell, and I’m the intermediate language teacher at Academy this year. I am currently working in Fairfax County as a middle school English teacher and just finished up my master’s in Secondary Education at George Mason. Teaching is something that I love (clearly) and I am so excited to teach my other home language to you over the summer. I’ve grown up speaking the language, but I didn’t learn a lot of the grammar rules until I took formal Japanese classes in college, so it is always incredible how much I learn about Japanese through my students. When I have free time, you can find me reading, watching Japanese television shows, attempting to make a journal spread look nice, or working through my massive gem painting that I got way back in November. I am also hoping to improve my Spanish once all of my schooling is done. I am very excited to share the Japanese culture with you and to get to know you over the three weeks! I hope you are just as excited to absorb all of the amazing things we have ready for you. よろしくお願いします！ |
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Rie Hashimoto Bailey
Teacher みなさん、おめでとうございます！（Congratulations！）＆ようこそ（Welcome）Virginia Governor’s Language Academyへ!! My name is Rie Hashimoto Bailey (理絵・橋本・ベイリー). I am from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. This is my 4th year to be an advanced class teacher. I am from a little different background than other SENSEI & SENPAI in this academy. I have a wide range of career backgrounds. I am a REIKI Master and Teacher for more than half of my life and I’m an Eastern medicine practitioner. I also trained in SHODO-Japanese calligraphy since I was 7 years old (because I was left-handed, my parents wanted to fix my hand habit, so, they put me in the school), and I hold a 7th-DAN degree in art. I won awards and had an exhibition at an art gallery in WA! I have been teaching SHODO at Japanese martial arts Dojo in Pennsylvania. When I graduated high school, I attended a professional international tourism college in Japan and the U.S. After graduation, I was an international travel coordinator and traveled all over the world. (That’s when I met my husband in Guam). Since then, we lived in Spain, Washington State, Italy, and now Pennsylvania. (I speak Japanese, English, Spanish & Italian). I always have passion for sharing my heritage of Japan with others. I am very excited and happy to be part of “Virginia Governor’s Language Academy” as one of the SENSEI this summer! Because of my background, I hope you FEEL a “SENSE OF JAPAN” that uses all 5 senses within you with the “FACE TO FACE” session through this program! Let’s begin to have lots of FUN together!! |
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Sana Vien
Teacher こんにちは！Hello everybody! I hope everyone is excited for this year’s Japanese Academy. My name is Sana Vien. Currently, I am a sales manager for the Coast Guard Exchange System - Semper Paratus! Some of my interests include reading, listening to J-Rock/J-Metal, and watching video essays/documentaries. I’m going to be the teacher for the beginner class this year. I started studying Japanese in high school and continued at the University of Virginia, majoring in Japanese Language & Literature and Biology. In 2018, I was a student of the academy and then I came back as an RA in 2020, 2021, taught the beginner class in 2022, and taught intermediate in 2024. よろしくお願いします! (and say hi to Remi) |
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Siam Salam
Lead Resident Assistant 皆さん、こんにちは！Hello everyone! My name is Siam Salam (シアム・サラム) and I am your Lead RA for the 2025 Virginia Governor’s Japanese Academy! I’m a rising third year at UVA and I’m majoring in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, as well as minoring in Japanese! I’m from NoVA (as many of you likely are from) and this is my FIRST year on staff with GJA (WOOO!) I love cooking (and eating, resident foodie here) and also big into singing and music, in general. I also love learning languages (Linguistics concentration!), which has gone hand-in-hand with me and my journey in Japanese! I have been learning Japanese for almost 10 years now, which has been a great experience for me. For those of you who are just starting learning Japanese, I hope this will be a launchpad to a wonderful language voyage. To those of you that have already started、 楽しい経験を作ってみよう！ I was a member of the 2022 Academy and it has been very formative for me and it has driven my love for Japanese culture and language and fostered a lot of lifelong friendships. I hope you enjoy this experience as much as I did, because it is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience! (一期一会！Hopefully you'll be able to understand this by the end of academy!) I’m so excited to meet you all and have a wonderful three weeks! |
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Clarise Digamo
Resident Assistant 皆さん、こんにちは！Hi, everyone! My name is Clarise Digamo, and I will be one of the RAs this summer! I’m from Northern Virginia, and I just finished my second year of college at George Mason University, where I’m studying business. In my free time, I love crafting, cooking, playing video games, and watching Japanese TV shows/Youtube videos. I was a student at the Academy back in 2022, and it was then that I realized I wanted to continue pursuing Japanese, even in my professional career. Academy pushed me to study Japanese more seriously, leading to incredible opportunities like studying abroad in Okayama, Japan last summer. Those experiences deepened my love for the language and culture, and I can’t wait to share that passion with all of you this summer! I truly hope Academy will be just as unforgettable and life-changing for you as it was for me, opening doors and creating memories you’ll always cherish! I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone and supporting you all on your Japanese journeys! よろしくお願いします！ |
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Malia Heupel Resident Assistant こんにちは！Hi everyone! My name is Malia Heupel and I’m from Fairfax, Virginia. I am a rising third year at the University of Virginia, majoring in Economics and minoring in Japanese. I’ll be one of the RA’s this summer as well as assisting with the intermediate class. I attended the Academy back in 2022 and I’m super excited to be returning this summer! I started teaching myself Japanese during COVID and my experience at the Academy motivated me to continue learning. Last summer, I went to Japan to visit family for about a month and traveled to Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, Osaka, Hiroshima, and Iwakuni. I had such a great experience at the Academy and cannot wait to share my enthusiasm about the Japanese language and culture. I especially love the mix of modern and traditional aspects in Japan, such as shopping in Harajuku and then visiting a Shinto shrine. Outside of studying Japanese, I love to hike, bake, and travel. I’m so excited to meet you all and have such a fun and rewarding summer! |
