Huy Phung, one of our PhD candidates, received the Graduate Student Organization’s Rachel Wade Award for Service and Outreach for his work on the Multiʻōlelo Initiative.
Huy studies how conversational interaction facilitates language acquisition and development. Working as a language teacher and teacher educator before entering the PhD program, he observed that many instructors and practitioners lack access to academic publications.
In an effort to make academic research more accessible and visible for public use and interaction, thereby increasing engagement between researchers and instructors, he designed the Multiʻōlelo Initiative (2018-present at https://multiolelo.com). The project aims to make language research findings available in different languages and formats (e.g., infographics, videos, podcasts, plain language summaries), thus expanding the potential audience and readership of these materials beyond English speakers. He served as the first coordinator to facilitate the implementation and development of the project. Working with the team, he has delivered several workshops and presentations at local conferences to continue expanding the initiative beyond UHM. He also facilitated with the team to publish their first article highlighting the Multiʻōlelo approach and their contribution to bridging the gap between research and practice in 2020. This year, the team organized the first webinar series in language research communication in April, which allows Multiʻōlelo to continue fostering connections between researchers, scholars, instructors, and students in a community of practice for research communication in the language-related fields at UHM and beyond.
Congratulations Huy!
Link: https://uhmgso.wixsite.com/website-1/merit-based-awards