Nooshan Ashtari

Nooshan Ashtari, Ph.D., is a faculty member at the University of Southern California (Rossier School of Education). With over 25 years of experience in language teaching and research, she specializes in technology-driven educational innovations, heritage language development, and sociolinguistic aspects of multilingualism.

• Expertise: Technology and Education, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Heritage Language Development, Teacher Training, Second Language Acquisition, Accents and Multilingualism, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics
• Courses Taught: EDUC 656 (Applied Linguistics), EDUC 521 (Diverse Language Learners), EDUC 596 (Technology in Language Learning), EDUC 639 (Language Teaching Strategies), EDUC 671 (Educational Equity), and others.

Her research focuses on integrating XR (Virtual/Augmented Reality) into teacher training, addressing barriers to heritage language proficiency, and analyzing the role of gender in language use. She explores how transliteration and romanization aid immigrant generations in maintaining linguistic heritage, while also examining implicit biases in accent perception and linguistic racism.

Recent publications highlight trends in EdTech innovation (e.g., Toucan platform) and the application of storytelling, pleasure reading, and socio-cultural frameworks to language acquisition. She collaborates across academia (engineering, design) and industry (product, R&D, marketing) to develop immersive educational tools.

• Keynote Engagements: Panelist with Noam Chomsky and Stephen Krashen on global language education.
• Current Projects: Series of illustrated heritage language acquisition books for immigrants.