Awards

Titled Professor - 2021 - 2024

John D. Soper Teaching Professor for Uyghur Language

About Gulnisa Nazarova

Gulnisa Nazarova earned her M.A. in Russian language and literature from Ivanovo State University in Russia in 1987. She earned her Ph.D. in philological sciences from the Institute of Linguists in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1992. Nazarova is a John D. Soper Teaching Professor at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global & International Studies at Indiana University (IU).

Her teaching career started in 1987 after she graduated from Ivanovo State University in Russia. She taught Russian Language and Literature at the high school level for two years before pursuing her Ph.D. at the Institute of Uyghur Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan. After Nazarova defended her dissertation on Uyghur lexicology in 1992, she accepted a position as Senior Lecturer at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies where she worked until 2005 before coming to the United States.

Nazarova was invited to teach intensive Uyghur at IU in 2005 for the Summer Language Workshop, and due to the success of the course, the Department of Central Eurasian Studies offered her to continue teaching the Uyghur language during the academic year, in addition to employing her as a curriculum materials developer at the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR). In 2015, Nazarova received the Trustees Teaching Award in the At-Large NTT Faculty competition. As of July 2021, she was promoted to the rank of Teaching Professor and has been appointed as the Director of CeLCAR.