Congratulations Principal Kato!

SFVJLI’s own Principal and Sensei Nina Kato is a woman who's traveled the world learning to communicate in several languages and how best to share them with others. Born and raised in Okinawa, Japan, she has also lived in Brazil, Mexico, New York, and California. She holds a Bachelor's of Arts in Languages (Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese), and a Master's of Arts in Spanish Linguistics from UC Riverside, and a second Master's in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from CSU Los Angeles.

Kato Sensei has been awarded the 2025-26 CSU Artificial Intelligence Educational Innovations Challenge Grant. She and her CSUN colleague Dr. Drake Langford are being awarded for their project, “Curriculum-Aligned AI Language Partner to Support Student-Centered Learning in Japanese,” which is intended as an ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in language learning in a progressively AI-dominated world.

Congratulations, sensei, your SFVJLI community is so proud of you for this amazing achievement!

For more information, please visit CSUN’s website here.