A former bilingual teacher in Arizona when the state passed an English-only policy, I engage in applied research and technical assistance to support state and district leaders with designing and implementing policies that promote asset-oriented, intellectually rigorous environments for multilingual learner students, families, and teachers.

In work funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition, the Spencer Foundation, and the W. T. Grant Foundation, I have investigated the implementation of language and course placement policies as well as STEM-CS reforms. I work in partnership with state and district school leaders to address pressing problems of practice and to generate resources that center multilingual learners in state and local policy. My scholarship has appeared in several top-tier journals, including American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, and Journal of Teacher Education, and I co-edited the volumes Forbidden Language: English Learners and Restrictive Language Policies and School Integration Matters: Research-Based Strategies to Advance Equity (both Teachers College Press).

I received the 2012 Dissertation of the Year Award from the Bilingual Education Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, and was a 2016-2017 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. I am also a member and fellow of the Working Group on ELL Policy. I currently serve as co-advisor to the English Learners Collaborative of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

I completed my Ph.D. in Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University. I also hold a Master’s degree in International Education Policy from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Indiana University.