I’m an Associate Professor of Spanish Applied Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, within the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, at the University of Maryland. I coordinate lower-level Spanish language courses and work with incoming TAs of our graduate programs who teach those courses.

My teaching includes courses on Spanish language and culture and Hispanic applied linguistics at the undergraduate level, and courses in applied linguistics and Spanish language teaching at the graduate level.

My research focuses on humor, pragmatics, Spanish language teaching (as a second/heritage language), and multimodality.

I am the founding editor of E-JournALL, EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages, Associate Editor of the Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, Director of Publications of ASELE, Asociación para la Enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera, and Consulting Editor of HUMOR – International Journal of Humor Research. Since 2019, I am the co-editor of the Routledge Innovations in L2 Spanish Language Teaching series.

I received a Ph.D. in English/Applied Linguistics from Texas A&M University-Commerce (2017), a Ph.D. in Spanish and English from the University of Alicante (2013), an M.A. in Teaching and Promoting Italian Language and Culture (PROMOITALS) from the University of Milan (2010, Italy),  and an M.A. in Teaching Spanish and English as Second/Foreign Languages from the University of Alicante (2008, Spain). I am also a certified FACS (Facial Action Coding System) rater.