Kenji Hakuta

Kenji Hakuta is the Lee J. Jacks Professor of Education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. An experimental psycholinguist, he is best known for his work on bilingualism and the acquisition of English in immigrant students. Hakuta is the author of numerous research papers and books, including Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism and In Other Words: The Science and Psychology of Second Language Acquisition.  He has chaired national research efforts on language-minority education and affirmative action in higher education and has testified before Congress and other public bodies on language policy, the education of language-minority students, and improving the quality of educational research. He has served as an expert witness in education litigation involving minority students. He was the founding dean of social sciences, humanities, and arts at the University of California, Merced, and previously held faculty positions at Yale University in psychology and the University of California, Santa Cruz, in education. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Hakuta earned his BA in psychology and social relations and his PhD in experimental psychology from Harvard University.

updated 2025