Stephen Luft and Kanako Yao share the 2013 Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for excellence in teaching Japanese language. The award, administered through the Association of Asian Studies, has been created by the family of the late Hamako Ito Chaplin, a long-time professor of Japanese at Yale University. It is awarded once each year to either a current graduate student or a full-time instructor.Luft and Yao are both Ph.D. students in Japanese language pedagogy (advisor Mari Noda). Luft is currently working on his dissertation on out-of-class study by students. He will be joining the faculty in Japanese at University of Pittsburgh this fall. Yao is currently preparing for her candidacy. Congratulations!