I was born in Rosario, Argentina. I received my MA in TESOL and PhD in Spanish (Linguistics track) from the Pennsylvania State University. At present, I am Associate Professor in Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. I also serve as the editor of the book series Multiliteracies and Second Language Education (Routledge) and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Diversity & Inclusion Research (Wiley). 

My main research areas include Learning by Design and second (L2) and heritage language (HL) pedagogy; diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education; Generative AI in teacher education; and multimodal social semiotics (with a focus on cultural artifacts such as Mexican lotería). I am also involved in the development and implementation of inclusive open educational resources. While at Texas A&M University, I worked as an ADVANCE Administrative Fellow in the Office for Diversity. I have also directed/coordinated six Spanish and Portuguese basic language programs in public and private universities in the United States and Canada.

Throughout my career, I have published articles on bilingualism, L2 and HL pedagogy, Learning by Design, Generative AI in higher education, multimodal social semiotics, and teacher cognition and practice in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. I am the main author of the first Canadian edition of Puntos de partida, and of the OER L2 Spanish textbooks Trayectos (published by COERLL) and Introducción a la escritura (Pressbooks). I am also the co-editor (with Dr. Manel Lacorte) of the volume Multiliteracies Pedagogy and Language Learning: Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). My co-authored (with Dr. Mary Kalantzis and Dr. Bill Cope) book Las alfabetizaciones múltiples: Teoría y práctica was published in December 2019 by Editorial Octaedro, and my single-authored book, Learning by Design and L2 Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (Routledge), appeared in April 2022. My latest co-edited volume (with Dr. Bill Cope and Dr. Mary Kalantzis), Towards Education Justice: Literacy, Multiliteracies, and the Design of Social Futures (Routledge), was published in December, 2023. 

I received my certification as ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Tester in Spanish in 2014. I have also served as an ACTFL mentor and the Vice-Chair, Chair, and Past-Chair of ACTFL’s Spanish for Heritage Learners Special Interest Group. In 2019, I was awarded the SGA Open Education Champion Award by the Student Government Association at Texas A&M University. I am also a CIMER Entering Mentoring Trained Facilitator, and completed the certification program in Diversity and Inclusion at Cornell University in 2021.