Educational Specialist
English Language Institute & SLS
Moore Hall 585B (& 570)
808.956.8374
kandajus(at)hawaii.edu
Born and raised in Honolulu, Justin earned his BA in Japanese and MA in Japanese Linguistics at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, focusing on the use of Grice’s Conversation Maxims in scripted humor construction. He studied abroad in Sophia University during the 2012-2013 academic year with a scholarship from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. Previous positions at UH include supervising the Ticket, Information, & ID Office and the Campus Center Graphics Office, as well as Administrative Assistant in the Department of Linguistics; all of which prepared Justin with the overall functional knowledge of UH: Mānoa to fulfill his duties both with students at the front end and faculty/staff at the back end as an Educational Specialist for both the SLS and ELI departments. Justin also helped spearhead the Japanese translation of a campus guide/map for UHM whilst in an English-Japanese translation class in the EALL department.
Current non-work related projects includes working on the Never Say book series by Jordan Pastor as an Editor/Consultant.
When not in the office, Justin works as an Assistant Coach for the Hawaii Baptist Academy’s Bowling program, and volunteers as President of the Hickam Junior Bowling Club which meets on Saturday mornings. He’s also a Youth Director (i.e. advocate for the youth programs) on the Oahu USBC Association’s Board of Directors. He also enjoys baking (and watching Great British Bake Off) and watching British panel shows.
Justin’s areas of professional interest include:
Construction of verbal humor
Translation and the relationship between fidelity & fluency
(Informal) discourse analysis of social media