Principal Investigators
Dr. Marco A. Bravo is the Principal Investigator of the MALLI project. He studies STEM access for Emergent Bilingual students. He is a former elementary grade bilingual teacher.
Dr. Kip Téllez is Co Principal Investigator on MALLI and Professor and former Chair in the Education Department at UC Santa Cruz. He began his career teaching elementary and high school ELD classes in east Los Angeles county. After receiving his PhD from Claremont Graduate University, he has focused his research on the intersection of language teaching and teacher education.
Dr. Eduardo Mosqueda
Dr. Jorge Solís
Dr. Kathy Stoehr is an associate professor in the Department of Education at Santa Clara University. She examines how prospective and early-career elementary teachers learn to teach mathematics to culturally and linguistically diverse students. She has investigated how prospective and early-career teachers develop rigorous mathematics lessons that draw on students’ home and community knowledge, language, practices, and values as resources for mathematics learning. She conducts mathematics workshops for parents/caregivers of elementary school children.
Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Mojica is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Santa Clara University and is a former dual language classroom teacher. Her research focuses on the classroom instruction of bilingual children in public schools and the intersections among language, race, ethnicity, gender and culture as they relate to the teaching and learning of Latinx bilingual learners.
Graduate Student Researchers
Liana Balloffet has been working on the MALLI project since beginning her PhD at UC Santa Cruz in 2019, and is currently leading the efforts to disemminate the project’s findings via the MALLI website and youtube channel. A former bilingual early childhood teacher, she is now writing her dissertation on the intersection of teacher education, early childhood multilingual learners, and mathematics education.
Dr. Yuzhu Xia is currently the Evaluation and Data Manager at the Early Childhood Department at the Boston Public Schools. She specializes in statistical analysis and machine learning approaches in advancing educational research. She is a passionate educator, researcher, and a mom of two kids!
Dr. Adira Patthoff is an Assistant Professor of Child Development and Education at Ventura College. As Graduate Student Researcher for MALLI (2019-2022), she collaborated on the coordination and structure of group meetings and facilitated discussions around the early childhood (PK – 3) grade span. Her current work focuses on preparing teachers for these transitional grades, as well as the dual enrollment program at her college.
Dr. Jolene Gregory Castillo spent 15 years teaching English in Xalapa, Mexico before pursuing her Ph.D. In Education at UCSC. Since graduating she has worked at Denver Public Schools in the Research and Evaluation department as the Lead Researcher. She currently leads all research projects for the Multilingual Education department as well as directing the Research Review Board and the Graduate Research Assistant program.
Christina Hewko is an education doctoral student at UC Santa Cruz that started working on the MALLI project in 2023. She taught high school social studies for six years and currently supervises preservice teachers at San Jose State University. Her research focuses on teacher learning and development through abolitionist and community-engaged approaches.
Maria Orozco Valencia
Rachael Dektor
Dr. Lina Martín Corredor is an Assistant Professor in the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education program at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She earned her Ph.D. in Culture, Literacy, and Language in the department of Bilingual-Biliteracy Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Her work focuses on Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs, the intersection between school and home Discourses, translanguaging pedagogy, and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in education using Lesson Study.
Dr. Brenda Sarmiento-Quezada (Ph.D. University of Texas at San Antonio) is an Assistant Professor of Literacy and Language Education with emphasis on emergent bilinguals at Purdue University. Her research area focuses on language practices and identity performances of linguistically and culturally diverse students. Dr. Sarmiento Quezada focuses on encompassing teacher education and preparation programs, literacy integration across content areas, bilingual community engagement, digital spaces and multimodalities, and language policy and practices. Connect via Twitter @bsarmientoq or through https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendasq/
Advisory Board
Johnnie Wilson has long supported teacher learning through the Monterey Bay Area Math Project, part of the California Mathematics Project. He serves on the Advisory Board for CMP and contributes to teacher learning about math teaching in many contexts here and abroad. You can find his math learning and teaching projects at Johnnie’s Math Page.
Dr. Elizabeth van Es
Dr. Iliana Alanís, a native of South Texas, is a Professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching for the University of Texas at San Antonio. As a university faculty member, she engages teacher candidates and practicing teachers for their work in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms with a primary focus on the rights of young children to develop their native language and cultural identity.
Sylvia Celedón-Pattichis is Professor of Bilingual/Bicultural Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests focus on studying linguistic and cultural influences on the teaching and learning of mathematics, particularly with Spanish-English bilingual students. She has led several funded projects that focus on turning language and culture into educational assets in teaching and learning mathematics. Currently, she collaborates in interdisciplinary projects to integrate mathematics and computing in bilingual middle schools.
My name is Maria Madrigal, and my first most important title is that I am mother to two beautiful brown children, soon to be 3! Second, I am a previous school leader and educator who is passionate about education equality for our brown and black communities.
Lead Evaluator
Manuel Vazquez Cano (he | him) is a Principal Researcher at Education Northwest and the lead evaluator of the MALLI project. His research and evaluation work focuses on building evidence to help educators and policymakers make decisions that improve outcomes for multilingual students. Manuel has nearly ten years of experience conducting large-scale, multi-site evaluations.