Wenhao Diao

Dr. Wenhao Diao is the Department Head and an Associate Professor of East Asian Studies. She is also affiliated with the interdisciplinary program of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, the Department of Linguistics, and the Department of Teaching, Learning & Sociocultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of Arizona. 

Dr. Diao has secured more than 1.4 million USD for research and resource-development projects and has published over 40 journal articles and book chapters. As an applied linguist, she studies identities and ideologies in (Chinese) language learning, teaching and use, with a particular focus on K-16 contexts and study abroad. She co-edited the book Language Learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and a special issue themed Study Abroad in the 21st Century for the L2 Journal. She founded the Center for East Asian Studies, a Title VI National Resource Center supported by the US Department of Education, and served as its co-Director till 2024. From 2023-2025, she directed STARTALK: Chinese Pathways in Arizona, a summer residential program for high school students funded by the National Security Agency.