Outstanding Grad Spotlight: Karen Tomas Corrales Sanchez

Editor’s Note: The College of Education is delighted to recognize the 11 students selected by their programs and departments as 2026 Outstanding Graduates. View all our honorees. 

Karen Tomas Corrales Sanchez found their experience in SDSU’s Dual Language and English Learner Education master’s program to be a transformative one. 

For one thing, the program’s emphasis on critical literacy and social justice stoked their passion to continue social justice work in the future. Their dream is to create a non-profit or a worker cooperative that will give support for education. For another, as a proud child of Mexicali, Mexico, in the borderlands, they felt right at home in the DLE department.

“I loved meeting professors, doctors and researchers that looked like me, had diverse backgrounds and invited a perspective of a more social justice-driven research,” Corrales Sanchez said. “It's extremely valuable to learn from both the critical literacy authors included in the curriculum and from the lived experiences of my peers.”

They selected lecturer and advisor Tamara Collins-Parks as their most influential faculty member for offering support throughout the program and helping them navigate the university system when they felt lost. Corrales Sanchez also treasured the mentorship of Assistant Professor Melina Melgarejo and Associate Professor and Chair Sera Hernández. 

“I invite educators to advocate for further research on multilingual adult education to bring more opportunities to our communities to share their talents and ancestral knowledge,” Corrales Sanchez said. “I share my positionality as a queer bilingual brown Mexican-American, first-generation immigrant and encourage other immigrants to share their voices in graduate school.”