Iker Arranz Otaegui, Ph.D. is currently Assistant Adjunct Professor in Basque Studies at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, at UCLA. Prof. Arranz’s current book-in-progress, Hitza, Herria, Hiria: Hip-Hop-aren Hastapenak Euskal Herrian (Txalaparta 2024) discusses Basque hip-hop in a cross-cultural fashion. More recently, in Spring 2025, Prof. Arranz implemented a Pilot Program to learn Basque language and culture using VR/AR environments, and combining it with different AI applications. This project, partially inspired by a previous experience learning Basque while cooking pintxos, aims to transform the way we teach and learn this ancient language, close the gap with other languages' resources, and try innovative ways of teaching.

Email: iker@ucla.edu

 www.ucbasque.org