Liya Zalaltdinova has been a preceptor in Slavic languages and literatures at Harvard University since 2022. She earned her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a focus on TESOL and second language acquisition from the State University of New York at Albany in 2019.
Dr. Zalaltdinova’s research interests center on second language learners' pragmatic competence, the linguistic theory of modality, and innovative strategies in language education. She has contributed significantly to the decentralization and diversification of Russian language curricula and is co-editing a forthcoming volume on Russian language assessment, scheduled for publication in 2025.
Before joining Harvard, Dr. Zalaltdinova taught at several institutions, including the University of Colorado Boulder (2021-2022), Williams College (2020), and the University of Pittsburgh (2020). At Harvard, she teaches Elementary Russian, Third-year Advanced Russian and Forth-year Russian courses: Russian and Post-Soviet Studies and Language, Ethnicity, and Diversity in Russia. She is also an active faculty advisor and mentor within the Harvard community.