Shushan Karapetian
Description of Role
Shushan Karapetian sets the Institute’s vision and leads the research and scholarship initiatives, deepening integration with entities both on and off campus and expanding the scope of academic programming. She researches, teaches, and writes about the Armenian experience, particularly focusing on competing ideologies at the intersection of language and the construction of transnational identity. Dr. Karapetian received a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from UCLA in 2014, where she taught Armenian Studies courses for more than 10 years. Her dissertation, “‘How Do I Teach My Kids My Broken Armenian?’: A Study of Eastern Armenian Heritage Language Speakers in Los Angeles,” received the Society for Armenian Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2015. In 2018, she was the recipient of the Russ Campbell Young Scholar Award in recognition of outstanding scholarship in heritage language research. She is the host of the podcast Language Therapy with Dr. K and the IG/YouTube Word of the Day.
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Director, 2023 – Present
Institute of Armenian Studies, University of Southern California
Deputy Director, 2019 – 2022
Institute of Armenian Studies, University of Southern California
Associate Director, 2018 – 2020
National Heritage Language Resource Center, University of California, Los Angeles
Adjunct Faculty, 2017 – 2020
Nathan Weiss Graduate College, Hindi and Urdu Language Pedagogy, Kean University, New Jersey
Lecturer, 2014 – 2019
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles
Program Director, 2014 – 2018
Center for World Languages/National Heritage Language Resource Center, University of California, Los Angeles
Postdoctoral Fellow, 2015 – 2016
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles
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Ph.D., 2014
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Dissertation: “How Do I Teach My Kids My Broken Armenian?”:
A Study of Eastern Armenian Heritage Language Speakers in Los Angeles
Co-chairs: Professor S. Peter Cowe, Professor Olga Kagan
Graduate Certificate in TESFL, 2011
Department of Applied Linguistics
University of California, Los Angeles
M.A., 2009
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
B.A., 2004
Anthropology, cum laude
Minors – French and Armenian Studies
University of California, Los Angeles