Visiting Scholars Program

Fall 2022 Visiting Scholars

Dr. Laura Monsalve Lorente, Associate Professor

Home Institution: Universitat de València, Spain
Unit / Department - School: International Affairs and School of Teacher Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Dr. Cristina Alfaro; Dr. Cristian Aquino-Sterling

Jiaqi Zhang, Digital Media Designer

Home Institution: Seouleaguer Co Ltd
Unit / Department - School: Chinese Cultural Center and School of Teacher Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Dr. Cristian Aquino-Sterling; Dr. Lilly Cheng

Jiaqi Zhang is a Digital Media Designer who just graduated with a master's degree from Hongik University in Korea. She has been using her new media operations and design skills to work on enhancing direct synergy between people from different cultural backgrounds. Jiaqi is visiting us from China through a joint sponsorship between the COE and the Chinese Cultural Center.

Spring 2022 Visiting Scholars

Raul Oliveira Albuquerque Paraná 

Home Institution: University of Jaén and the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil
Unit / Department - School: School of Teacher Education and Department Dual Language & English Learner Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Dr. Cristian Aquino-Sterling

María Luisa Pérez Cañado, Ph.D.

Home Institution: University of Jaén, Spain
Unit / Department - School: School of Teacher Education and Department Dual Language & English Learner Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Cristian Aquino-Sterling, Ph.D., School of Teacher Education

Pérez-Cañado is a leading international scholar in bilingual education and Content Language Integrated Language (CLIL), an educational approach in which students learn a language and a subject simultaneously. She is currently conducting research across six European countries to identify difficulties, best practices and training that will help facilitate diversity-sensitive teaching and learning in bilingual programs. 

“Carrying out a research stay at SDSU will undoubtedly help us advance on all these fronts because you’re doing outstanding work in this area,” Pérez-Cañado said. “We have a great deal to learn here in Europe from how you’re dealing with the whole issue of diversity/inclusion differentiation/integration in bilingual programs in the U.S.” 

Pérez-Cañado said she is particularly excited to meet faculty and students from SDSU’s Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, observe classes and explore opportunities for collaboration. She also intends to visit San Diego-area dual language schools to observe best practices. 

This visit is something of a do-over for Pérez-Cañado, who was an International Visiting Scholar at SDSU when the pandemic hit in early 2020, causing her to return to Spain early. 

“I truly look forward to having the chance to undertake all the activities which COVID precluded me from doing,” she added. “I’m excited at the prospect of exploring future avenues for collaboration between our universities, projects and masters degrees.” 

Amurabi Oliveira 

Home Institution: Federal University of Santa Catarina,  Brazil
Unit / Department - School: School of Teacher Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Dr. Ronald Evans

A former high school teacher and teacher educator, Oliveira now studies the recent rise of populism and authoritarianism and their impact on how educators teach social science in schools. He recently traveled to Poland to study the phenomenon. 

“Many similar things have happened in both Brazil and the U.S. over the past five or six years,” Oliveira said. “One thing that got my attention was the creation of the post-truth era and its impact on the teaching of not only social science but also teaching in general. I want to understand that better." 

Last year, Oliveira concluded a year as a visiting professor in Spain. As a Fulbright scholar at SDSU, collaborating with faculty-sponsor and School of Teacher Education professor emeritus Ronald Evans — a leading expert on social studies and curriculum history — Oliveira is particularly looking forward to conducting field work in San Diego-area schools, talking to social studies teachers about their experiences. 

His visit is being co-sponsored by SDSU’s Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies. 

“I’ve never been to the U.S. before — not even as a tourist,” Oliveira said. “I’m really interested in exploring the academic culture in a country with such long-term experience in democracy. That's very different than what we have in Brazil. To me it's incredible to find out the meaning of academic freedom in a country with so deep a democratic experience.” 

Spring 2020 Visiting Scholars

María Luisa Pérez Cañado, Ph.D.

Home Institution: University of Jaén, Spain
Unit / Department - School: School of Teacher Education and Department Dual Language & English Learner Education
Faculty Sponsor / Mentor / Co-Sponsor: Cristian Aquino-Sterling, Ph.D., School of Teacher Education

Dr. María Luisa Pérez Cañado is Full Professor at the Department of English Philology of the University of Jaén, Spain, where she is also Rector’s Delegate for European Universities and Language Policy. Her research interests are in Applied Linguistics, bilingual education, and new technologies in language teaching. Her work has appeared in over 100 scholarly journals and edited volumes and she is also author or editor of 15 books on the interface of second language acquisition and second language teaching, and editor or member of the editorial board of 18 international journals. María Luisa has given more than 140 lectures and talks in Belgium, Poland, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, England, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, China, The United States, and all over Spain. She is currently coordinating the first intercollegiate MA degree on bilingual education and CLIL in Spain, as well as European, national, and regional projects on attention to diversity in CLIL. She has also been granted the Ben Massey Award for the quality of her scholarly contributions regarding issues that make a difference in higher education.

Macarena Navarro Pablo, Ph.D.

Macarena Navarro Pablo is a teacher trainer (L1 and L2) in the Infant and Primary School Teacher's degrees at the University of Seville at the Language Education Department. Her studies include reflection on methods for teaching language skills development, improving language competence, analysis and design of teaching sequences, resources and materials for language teaching and bilingual education.

In recent years, she has been participating in several research projects such as The effects of Content and Language Integrated Learning in monolingual communities: A large scale evaluation; Improving competence in linguistic communication of pre-school and primary education students and Literacy as social and educational practice in the early years of primary education, all of them financed by the Spanish Ministry. She is currently a member of a research group at the University of Jaén participating in the project: Attention to diversity in Bilingual Education: a comparative Study in Monolingual contexts.