Galal Walker, Professor, OSU Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director, National East Asian Languages Resource Center at The Ohio State University, has served the fields of Chinese language study and the less commonly taught languages in varied capacities such as President of the National Association of Self-Instructional Language Programs; member, Steering Committee of the National Council for the Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages; member, Executive board of the Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers' Association; task force member for the College Boards Chinese Advanced Placement Program. He is instrumental in the development of the College of Humanities' World Media and Culture Center, a unique facility for learning, development, and exchange to open its doors in 2003. Grants and awards he has received include Development of the Audio Program for Chinese: Communicating in the Culture (US Department of Education), Principal Investigator and National Foreign Language Resource Center (US Department of Education), Co-principal Investigator; development contract for Kaleidoscope: A Course in Intermediate to Advanced Spoken Cantonese (Center for the Advancement of Language Learning), Co-principal Investigator; grant, Defense Language Institute. Selected publications include co-authorship of Chinese: Communicating in the Culture and audio programs for beginning Mandarin; he has edited the five-volume series and ancillaries for Spoken Cantonese: Context and Performance. He has written widely on issues related to the less commonly taught languages, including Learning Less Commonly Taught Languages: An Agreement on the Bases for the Training of Teachers (co-authored), OSU Foreign Language Publications; "Design for an Intensive Chinese Curriculum" in Current Trends in Chinese Language Pedagogy, Scott McGinnis, ed., OSU Foreign Language Publications; Foreign Language Annals; Shaping the Future: Challenges and Opportunities (Northeast Conference Reports). He was instrumental in the development and implementation of Individualized Instruction in Chinese at OSU and he has been actively investigating the use of hypermedia for Chinese and Japanese curriculum and materials design. Walker is currently Director of the OSU Chinese Flagship Program, which includes the US/China Links Program. The Chinese Flagship Program provides American students the opportunities to reach the highest levels of proficiency in spoken and written Chinese.

In 2003, Galal Walker became the first recipient in the US and the English speaking world to receive the “China Language and Culture Friendship Award,” from the Ministry of Education of China.