Margarita Machado-Casas, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Dr. Margarita Machado-Casas is Professor and Chair in the Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education. Machado-Casas investigates: (a) family and community multiliteracies, (b) migration and immigration, (c) bilingual teacher education, (d) technology in educational spaces and (d) assessment and evaluation.

Guillermo Castillo
[email protected]

Guillermo Castillo is Senior Director at Butte County Office of Education and Coordinator/Lecturer at San Diego State University. He teaches courses at Feather River Community College and Mendocino Community College in the area of education. He has an Masters in Cross Cultural Education, Administrative Credential and Teaching Credential from Point Loma Nazarene University and National University. His undergraduate work is from California State University, San Bernardino. During his graduate work, he focused his research on the benefits of dual language programs. Prior to his appointment to Senior Director in July 2016, he was Associate Director for California Mini-Corps program in Sacramento.  He also served as Coordinator of California Mini-Corps at San Diego State University and California State University, San Marcos. His career began as a middle school teacher in South San Diego where he taught social studies. Throughout his k-12 tenure as a teacher, he taught at all levels. He had the opportunity to teach high school, third grade and kindergarten at a Spanish immersion elementary school.

The youngest of four siblings and an immigrant from Tijuana, Baja California Mexico, Guillermo Castillo was the first in his family to graduate from college and understands the challenges faced by second language learners. His worked has centered around teacher pathways, identifying gatekeepers and other institutional mechanism which become barriers for those aspiring to become educators. He has established multiple partnerships with Universities, Community Colleges, County Offices, Districts and Charters to address the teacher shortage in all areas but with a specific focus on bilingual teachers.

Melissa Nararro, Ph.D. 
[email protected]

Dr. Melissa A. Navarro Martell (ella/she/her(s)) earned her Ph.D. in Education with a specialization in K-12 education and equity from the Joint Ph.D. Program in Education between San Diego State University and Claremont Graduate School in 2018. Prior to joining SDSU, she was an assistant professor in liberal studies at CSU Dominguez Hills. Her research and teaching center the need to prepare critically conscious bilingual educators on the sociopolitical, ideological, cultural, and linguistic aspects of teacher preparation in general, and K-8 equitable science and dual-language education specifically; pushing the need to decolonize science education. 

Dr. Navarro Martell is a Whisenton Scholar, a partnership between the Whisenton Public Scholars program and the Kettering Foundation that encourages scholars to tryout elements of citizen-centered democracy in the context of teaching, research, and service. In addition, she was recently selected to be a scholar for the Quantitative Research Methods for STEM Education Program, an NSF-funded project offered by the University of Maryland, College Park, aimed at building capacity in STEM Education research. She has been a member of the Research & Equity Scholarship Institute (RESISTE) team at SDSU since 2016 

Her experiences as an immigrant 6^th grade student from Tijuana, México, inspired her path as an educator who understands bilingual learners. Dra. Navarro Martell is a former 4^th and 8^th grade social-justice math and science Spanish/English dual-language teacher.