Wenjuan Qin is an assistant professor at the College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University, China. She received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her teaching and researching focus on language development as influenced by home and school factors in learners from various linguistic and sociocultural backgrounds. She conducts quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies to address three lines of research: 1) Writing development of second language learners, especially how they deploy different linguistic forms to write across genres, registers and communicative contexts. 2) Development of academic language skills for school-relevant reading and writing. 3) Influence of home literacy practices on children's language development.

 

Linda Andreev is an advanced PhD student at HGSE with a strong interest in language and literacy. Her dissertation examines teacher’s talk in the context of a discussion-based curriculum for English learners. Linda’s other research focuses on a) supporting newly arrived immigrant students develop their English and academic language skills; b) exploring instructional practices that develop students’ language skills in support of academic content learning; and c) supporting educators working with English-learning youth. Before coming to Harvard, Linda served in a Turnaround school for 6 years, where she taught English Language Development and directed language development programs for students in grades 6-12. Taking advantage of her teaching and administrative roles, Linda also supported the opening and development of a Newcomer Center to address the needs of immigrant youth and their families.

 

Gladys Aguilar is a PhD candidate in the Human Development, Teaching and Learning concentration at Harvard University. Her research involves Latinx children’s first and second language development and its relation to biliteracy. Having immigrated from Méxicoto the U.S. as a child, she is interested in the influence of cultural factors, parents and teachers in the association between minoritized children’s dual language development and their educational, psychosocial, and emotional well-being.Gladys has worked as a Spanish-Englishbilingual teacher and as a mental health professional in urban settings serving predominantly immigrant families.

Josh is a Research Assistant for the Language for Learning Team at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Eliot-Pearson Center for Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. His research interests encompass developmental and educational linguistics, developmental psychology, social determinants of health, and the unique contributions that each makes to inform a holistic and evidence-based understanding of human development. He is passionate about language and its applications across sociocultural contexts to promote equitable access to education, health care, and other social services. Other interests include quantitative methods, community-based participatory research, moral and ethical development, and vulnerability and resilience in childhood. Josh holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and an Ed.M. from Harvard University.

 

Ziyun Deng is a Dean’s Global Education Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She also serves as a faculty advisor for the Human Development and Education program at HGSE. Her work focuses on the language skills that adolescents and young adults utilize in response to controversies and dilemmas, particularly in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic contexts. She has developed novel instruments to examine the lexical, grammatical, and discourse complexity of adolescents’ argumentative writing, which have been awarded by the Yidan Foundation and American Educational Research Association (AERA). Ziyun graduated with a B.A. in English language and literature from Peking University in China and worked as an advisor to undergraduates at Harvard College.

 

Manar is an Egyptian award-winning children’s book author. She received her Master of International Education Policy degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and holds a Master of Anthropology from The American University in Cairo. In 2018, she founded a project in Egypt to promote storytelling. It involved organizing and hosting family storytelling events, encouraging “bonding through reading.” Hazzaa collaborated with the Pedagogy of Play (POP) team at Project Zero; her work involved reviewing the Arabic POP academic literature. Her current academic focus is on Arabic language and literacy and family engagement in education. She is interested in studying early reading development for bilingual Arabic-speaking children and how parents’ practices and attitudes toward story-time affect children’s preliteracy skills acquisition.

Evelyn Hugo is a doctoral student in the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Faculty of Education. Her research involves linguistic resources and knowledge, metalinguistic reflection, writing, and their relation with learning. Evelyn is part of the Factoría Ideas research group (@factoriaideas), studying the link between language, science knowledge, and classroom discourse in school contexts.