Karen Llagas

Karen Llagas is a Tagalog lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches Filipino language, literature, and culture. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and a BA in Economics with a Minor in French from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

Her research interests focus on myths and folklore in contemporary Filipino and Filipino-American literature, as well as heritage language teaching, particularly through the lens of critical pedagogy. Llagas is also an accomplished poet, with her first poetry collection, Archipelago Dust, published in 2010. She has received several awards for her work, including the Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize and the RHINO Founder's Prize in 2022. Additionally, she is currently working on a Tagalog verb book titled 501 Tagalog Verbs and her second poetry collection.123

Llagas divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles and also works as a freelance translator and cultural consultant.23