Don McLaughlin is a semi-retired faculty member of West Virginia University.  During his more than forty years at West Virginia University he has served as a teacher, administrator, computer systems manager, and leader in the virtual environments lab in the Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.  He currently teaches courses in artificial intelligence and computer graphics. 

In the 1990s, Mr. McLaughlin began working on a collaboration between the WVU Virtual Environments lab and Gifu University in Gifu Prefecture. This involved, among other things, several trips to Japan for meetings, and conferences, and to work with partners in Gifu to further define their collaboration. 

In 2003 and 2004, Mr. McLaughlin led two small teams of students from the United States to Japan to work on research projects in collaboration with a laboratory at the University of Aizu in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima prefecture.  The research “excursions” lasted three months over the two respective summers. During these summers Mr. McLaughlin and the students had the opportunity to live in homestays with Japanese families, work in a Japanese university, and become involved in local community activities.  Each of the two teams also took the opportunity to travel and explore different parts of Japan. 

In 2010 through 2014, Mr. McLaughlin served as the faculty leader for the Faculty Lead Study Abroad program for the Chinese language and culture program at West Virginia University. In a four year span, he took 20 to 25 students to Suzhou, Qing Dao, Nanjing, and Beijing China, respectively, for intensive and immersive courses in Chinese language and culture. In addition to the language and culture classes, he and the students had the opportunity to take numerous “field trips” and participate in a variety of cultural activities.