Antonieta Avila
Mentor: Aria Razfar
Antonieta Avila is an assistant professor in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She teaches courses in the Second Language Education Program. She completed her Ph.D. in Bilingual/Bicultural Education from the University of Texas at Austin. Antonietahas been an educator for over 20 years, and taught in Mexico City, Los Angeles and Austin.Her scholarly interests focus on exploring the intersections of science learning, literacy, and bilingual education in elementary classrooms. Through her work with teachers, parents, and students she advocates for access to equitable education highlighting the need to support students’ cultural and linguistic resources. As an emerging scholar, her research work and academic excellence have been recognized and supported by competitive merit-based fellowships and scholarships such as the UT Austin’s Center for Mexican American Studies Dissertation Fellowship, the MetLife Scholarship Fund, the Cora Merriman Martin Scholarship Fund, and the E.D. Farmer International Fellowship.Soria Colomer
Mentors: MarÃa Fránquiz and Eurydice Bauer
Soria Colomer is an assistant professor of in the College of Education at Oregon State University. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor of Foreign Language/ESOL Education at University of South Florida and a core faculty member of the Second Language Acquisition & Instructional Technology (SLA/IT) doctoral program. Her research focuses on the positioning of Latina/o teachers and bilingual faculty in schools with growing Latina/o student populations. She is particularly interested in teacher recruitment policies and teacher preparation practices. She has been the recipient of a Southern Regional Education Board Dissertation Scholarship, an American Evaluation Association Graduate Education Diversity Internship, and an American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Graduate Fellowship.
Mary McGriff
Mentors: Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz and Tonya Perry
Mary McGriff is an assistant professor in the Literacy Education Department at New Jersey City University, and her research and teaching focuses on English learner literacy, content area literacy and professional development related to these areas. She is the author of Teacher Identity and ELL-Focused Content Area Professional Development (Action in Teacher Education). She is a contributing author in the books Beloved Educators, Women of Color Who Inspire Us and Language-based Approaches to Support Reading Comprehension. She received a New Jersey Department of Education grant to fund a professional development network for seven New Jersey schools. Prior to earning her Ed.D. from Rutgers University, she served as a school administrator and a middle grades language arts teacher in New Jersey and Texas public schools.Maria Selena Protacio
Mentor: Robert Jiménez
Maria Selena Protacio is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education and Literacy Studies at Western Michigan University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education with a Language and Literacy specialization from Michigan State University. Her research interests focus on increasing reading motivation and engagement among English Language Learners and preparing pre-service and in-service teachers to work in diverse classrooms. Her work has been published in Reading Teacher and Asia-Pacific Journal of Education. She is currently the Co-Editor of the Reading Horizons journal.
Kwangok Song
Mentors: Eurydice Bauer and Mileidis Gort
Kwangok Song is an assistant professor of reading and literacy studies in the department of Teacher Education and Leadership at Arkansas State University. Her research areas include, but not limited to, emergent bilingual students’ language and literacy experiences in and out of school settings, and their language and literacy development. She has published in Journal of Early Childhood Literacy.Monica Yoo
Mentor: Allison Skerrett
Monica S. Yoo is an assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs where she teaches courses in literacy and secondary teacher education. Her scholarly areas of interest include students’ uptake of strategies for reading and writing, connections between reading and writing, and content area teachers’ understandings of literacy within their disciplines. She was awarded a University of Colorado Diversity and Excellence Grant to start a university-high school mentorship project in which university tutors act as literacy coaches to urban high school students. Her work has appeared in the Colorado Reading Council Journal and in the following books: Reading and Writing with Understanding; Secondary School Reading and Writing: What Research Reveals for Classroom Practices; and Talking Science, Writing Science: The Work of Language in Multicultural Classrooms.