About Me

I am an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia, with a Ph.D. in Special Education under the mentorship of Dr. Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development. I have also received an Ed.M. in Language and Literacy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in English Literature with minors in Education and Spanish from Mercer University as a Stamps Family Charitable Foundation Scholar. 

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As a former English learner growing up in New Jersey, I am interested in understanding language and literacy development of multilingual learners in the U.S. and seeking ways to support educators and schools. 

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Currently, I collaborate on two equity-focused partnerships on: (1) the impact of the pandemic on multilingual learners’ English language proficiency outcomes in Virginia and (2) Spanish-English multilingual learners’ academic outcomes in Utah. I’m committed to not only designing and implementing high-quality, equity-focused education research, but also meaningful and actionable findings for educators and school partners.

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My work has been featured in Applied Psycholinguistics, Educational Researcher, Journal of Educational Psychology, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, and Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.