Holds a Ph.D. in Foreign and Second-Language Education from The Ohio State University. She has been the director of the Spanish basic-Language program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; the inaugural coordinator of the minor program in Spanish for the professions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and, most recently, a lecturer at the University of Chicago. She devotes most of her professional time to career coaching, which includes workshops for foreign-language students navigating the campus-to-career transition.

Is the Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Language Program at the University of California, San Diego, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies. An internationally recognized scholar of Spanish syntax, he has a longstanding commitment to the development and implementation of highly effective, research-based practices in language teaching. He brings a rich international background to the Conéctate project: He was educated in both the United States and Mexico, has spent much of his life along the border between the two, and has taught or lectured in twenty countries.