Katie Richardson, Multilingual Education Administrator of ARPS
Katie is the Multilingual Education Administrator with the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools (ARPS). She has tirelessly and very positively worked as a founding leader of the Dual Immersion program in the Amherst-Pelham Regional Public Schools (ARPS, MA), and directed all aspects of the Dual Immersion, English Language Learning, and Bilingual programming (including after-school programming to promote maintenance/literacy skills in home languages) in the district.
Danielle Thomas holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics and her research focuses on language development and language use by bilinguals. Danielle held a faculty position at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2017 to 2022, and is now a Research Officer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Toronto and manages a project on the unique sound, structure and processing abilities of Spanish-English bilinguals in Toronto and various locations in the US (West Lafayette, Indiana and El Paso, Texas). In addition to researching the unique ways that bilinguals learn and use language, she is also interested the maintenance of home/heritage languages and in promoting bilingualism and multilingualism in different contexts (home, institutions, public spaces). She is very interested in connecting research to practice, and she welcomes suggestions and contributions from all community members of how to make this happen in an effective way.
Maria Susan Guarino (she/her) is a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University and holds an MA in Hispanic Literature with Graduate Certificates in Feminist Studies and Film Studies from UMass Amherst. Maria's scholarly work focuses on Disability Studies in Education, specifically exploring autism and intellectual disabilities through art-based methods. Prior to her graduate studies, Maria was a Middle and High School Spanish teacher, which she loved. As a future professional scholar, she hopes to continue incorporating and developing relevant pedagogy, research, and art in order to facilitate inclusive spaces for all.