Dr. Hitomi Oketani-Lobbezoo received her Ph.D. from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), Canada (Multilingual Education); MA from Osaka University (former University of Osaka of Foreign Studies), Japan (Japanese Language Teaching) as well as M.Ed. from OISE/UT (Heritage Language Education). She has taught at various institutions including University of Toronto and University of Regina. She is currently serving as board member of the Japanese Teachers' Association of Michigan (JTAM) and as academic adviser of Japanese-English two-way immersion project. Her areas of current research include multilingual education, socio-psycho-linguistics, Japanese heritage language education.