Samantha is a passionate educational leader who embraces the mindset that one must always be a learner in order to grow. She specializes in program articulation, data-informed and student-driven school improvement, meaningful literacy development, and best practices in multilingual learning. She is constantly seeking to dynamically serve all learners, coach and support from areas of strength, enhance learning with research-based practices, and develop her own and fellow colleagues’ skills as leaders and learners.

Colegio Maya -- cm.edu.gt

Colegio Maya, The American International School of Guatemala was founded in 1958 and is a private, non-profit, non-sectarian, co-educational day school which offers an American International Curriculum, guided by US Educational Standards and Common Core. Colegio Maya offers an educational program from Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 for students of all nationalities.

Since 2005, Esther has worked in the field of international education as a classroom teacher, school administrator, teacher educator and educational researcher, primarily based in Latin America. Esther holds a PhD from the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the UW—Madison (U.S.A.). For her dissertation, she engaged in collaborative research with teachers and students at an international school in Colombia as they reimagined and explored how their language programs, policies, and practices could better serve multilingual learners. Esther has a robust publication record, including articles in the Journal of Language, Identity and Education, Teachers College Record and Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, as well as various book chapters. She has taught undergraduate and graduate-level education courses at the UW—Madison, Buffalo State University, and Queen’s University (Canada). Her work reflects her commitment to support, advocate for and engage in research that centers the experiences of multilingual students, their families and their schools.

Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC) -- mlrc.wisc.edu

The MLRC is a research center focused on teaching and learning. Our goal is to advance educational outcomes for multilingual learners through innovative and socially just research and research–practice partnerships. The MLRC is part of the University of Wisconsin—Madison School of Education and is located within the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research.