Meet the TexLER Committee

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The Texas Language Education Research (TexLER) Conference Committee is a student organization comprised of doctoral and Master's students in the Department of Bicultural & Bilingual Studies in the College of Education and Human Development.

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Committee Members

Daniela Silva the President of the TexLER Committee. She is a second year Ph.D. student in the Culture, Literacy and Language program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She earned her M.A. degree in TESL and Spanish at the University of Mississippi. She was also a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Miami where she taught Portuguese.

Amanda is the Vice President of the TexLER Committee. She is a second year graduate student in the MA-TESL program, and spent the last decade teaching EFL in Korea and South America. She holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. Her areas of interest are in teacher education, second language literacy, therapy animals in second language acquisition, and adult EFL education.

Mariana the Treasurer of the TexLER Committee. She is a Ph.D. student in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds an M.A. in Multidisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in ethnic studies, teacher counselor education, and women’s studies from Oregon State University. Her research interests include rural Latina/o ethnic identity.

Marie is the Venue Coordinator of the TexLER Committee. She is a second year graduate student in the MA – TESL program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds a B.I.S. in EC-6 Generalist from the University of Texas at El Paso. She hopes to work with ESL students at the secondary and post-secondary educational levels.

Alpha is the Volunteer Coordinator of the TexLER Committee. She is a second year graduate student in the MA-BBL program at UTSA. She holds a B.H. in International Relations from the Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas in México. Her areas of interest include BBL teaching strategies, Spanish writing skills and teacher education for the formation of culturally efficacious teachers for the multicultural classroom.

Vanessa is the former President of the TexLER committee. She is a PhD student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is currently pursing her PhD in the Bicultural and Bilingual Studies program. Before pursing her studies she was an English teacher in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Her current areas of research interest range from teacher language awareness and different pedagogical approaches towards teaching English language learners.

David Martínez Prieto is a first year doctoral student at UTSA. He holds a Masters in TESOL from Michigan State University and BA in Modern Languages from Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. He's been awarded with scholarships from the Australian government (2008-2009), the U.S. deparment of State (2012-2014) and the Mexican government (2016-). His research interests focus on the identity of returnee students.

Sonya is a doctoral candidate in the Culture, Literacy, and Language program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has published short stories in the Abydos Education Journal, The Flash Fiction Press and has poetry publications in La Noria, News Verse News, Diagram, Aries, From the Depths, and Scissors & Spackle.

Yangting (Tina) Wang is a first year student in the Cultural, Language and Literacy doctoral program. She received her BA in English Education and graduated from Michigan State University with an MA in TESOL. She taught Chinese at Concordia Language Villages and later taught English for two years at Marshall University. Her research interests lie in second language assessment, computer assisted language learning, and identity.

Mariah is a first year MA-TESOL student at UTSA. She earned her undergraduate at Nebraska Wesleyan University in English and German. After assistant teaching for a workforce development program in Nebraska, she realized she wanted to teach ESL to adults. Her interests include adult education, sociolingustics and approaches to teaching creative writing to L2 learners.

Melissa Yvette Parra is a student in the PhD Cultural, Language and Literacy program at UTSA. She is presently teaching in the IEP at UTSA. She has taught for Texas State (TSIE), Austin Community college (ELI) and Palo Alto Community college (ALA). Her research interests include language ideologies and writing systems as well as written assessment.

Narda is the Secretary of the TexLER Committee. She is an undergraduate student in the Bicultural- Bilingual studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Narda Is pursuing a degree in EC-6, Bilingual education with a minor in Legal Studies. She is currently treasurer of the Bilingual Education Student Organization, and Secretary for the First To-Go and Graduate organization.