Associate Professor of Practice, Modern Languages and Literatures
Mimi Yu, Associate Professor of Practice, joined UTSA in 2008 as a Japanese lecturer where she also served as the former associate director for the East Asia Institute (EAI, 2008-2019.) Her areas of interest are Japanese teaching pedagogy and instructional technology.
Prior to joining UTSA, Mimi taught Japanese at the University of Nevada, Reno for almost 20 years and won the Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award within the College of Liberal Arts.
While directing the EAI, Mimi also served as the president for the Japan America Society of San Antonio twice. Due to her involvement in promoting Asia-related programs both at UTSA and in the S.A. community, she received the Diversity First Award given by the Texas Diversity Council.
In addition, Mimi received UTSA President’s Distinguished Diversity Award for promoting diversity and inclusion in creative and collaborative ways. She is also the recipient of multiple external and internal grants to enhance students’ academic experiences. To date, Mimi has supervised more than 15 study abroad groups of UTSA students to study in Asia that covers China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan since 2013.
Mimi has spoken at various language conferences and has been awarded multiple grants from UTSA to create Open Educational Resources (OER) to make textbook free for UTSA’s beginning-level Japanese courses.
In her free time, Mimi enjoys travel, music, cooking, reading, arts, and learning new languages and world cultures.