Paula Giron
Paula Giron currently serves as a Texas Rising Star Assessor, and has been an educator for 24 years. Prior to this, she worked as a Title I ESL specialist in Arlington ISD, as a district literacy coordinator for LaVega ISD, and as a bilingual dyslexia interventionist in Dallas ISD. She has also taught ELAR/Language Arts in grades 5th, 7th and 8th in Georgia and Tennessee. Other positions include teaching ESL K-12th, RETELL specialist at the Department of Education in Massachusetts and being an English Language Fellow for the English Language Fellow Program in the Republic of Georgia. Paula holds a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Lee University and a Masters in TESOL from New York University. Being a former ESL student, she is passionate about supporting both teachers and students in the areas of ESL and Bilingual Education.
Cindy Kilpatrick
Dr. Cynthia Kilpatrick is a longtime ESL teacher and TESOL trainer who is currently the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stephen F Austin State University. From 2009-2024, Cindy was a faculty member in the Department of Linguistics and TESOL at The University of Texas at Arlington, where she also served as the director of UTA’s English Language Institute. She is an award-winning instructor, advisor, and online course developer, and regularly presents at regional, state, and national conferences. Cindy earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Lee University, a Master of Arts in linguistics from The University of Texas at El Paso, and a Ph.D. in linguistics with a focus in second language acquisition from the University of California, San Diego. She has been an ESL teacher in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala; Enga Province, Papua New Guinea; El Paso, Texas; San Diego, California; and in the DFW area.
Dongmei Cheng
Dr. Dongmei Cheng earned a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics with distinction from Northern Arizona University and has worked as an English language educator and teacher trainer for the past two decades. She is currently Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at East Texas A&M University where she teaches and mentors graduate students in the TESOL and Applied Linguistics programs. She has served on the TexTESOL V board as the Member-at-Large for the past two years and is an active member and regular presenter at the International TESOL convention. Her scholarly publications have appeared in a book by Routledge and numerous peer-reviewed articles in renowned linguistics journals.
Kelli Sederavicius
Kelli Sederavicius currently works at The University of Texas at Arlington. She has 20 years of experience as an ESOL teacher and teacher trainer, and holds a Master of Arts in Teaching, TESOL concentration.
Sarah Guedry
Sarah Guedry serves secondary teachers and students in Lewisville ISD as an ESL Specialist. Her Bachelor’s degree from Texas Woman’s University and Master’s degree from Dallas Baptist University were both focused on Bilingual Education. Sarah has worked with a wide range of English learners over the past 20 years. During the school year she works primarily with teachers, providing coaching and training in Sheltered Instruction strategies. Every summer she coordinates enrichment opportunities for English Learners through STEM and inquiry projects in Lewisville ISD’s SOAR Academy for English Learners. Addicted to learning, she has attended and presented at many local and state conferences and is excited to continue learning and sharing with TexTESOL V.
YANETH RIVERA
Yaneth Rivera is a bilingual and bicultural leader, first generation immigrant and college graduate who is dedicated to serving her community and advocating for education equity. Ph.D. Candidate in the PhD Educational Leadership program at UNT. Her research interests are Emergent Bilingual Accommodations and Bilingual Education Policy.
Lizabeth Garza-Garcia
Dr. Liz Garza-García brings a wealth of experience across multiple roles and levels in DFW-area school districts, including bilingual teacher, instructional coach, Title III coordinator, Data Analysis and Reporting Coordinator, and currently serves as the Secondary Emergent Bilingual Director for Fort Worth ISD. In addition to joining the TexTESOL V Board, she is the Vice-President of BEAM, and hopes to build collaborative efforts between the two organizations. Liz lives in North Texas with her husband Joel, their two children, and seven beloved pets.
Olga Gilbert
Currently an ESL teacher at Skyline high school in Dallas, Olga Gilbert is excited about serving as a secondary ed representative and advocating for our English learners. Her experience includes teaching adult literacy in Russia and Canada, as well as credit and non-credit ESOL courses at the Dallas College. She holds a BA in English from the University of Latvia and an MA TESOL from Biola University.
LISBETH ZUERCHER
Lis Zuercher is a language professor who has taught in various countries and at several universities in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. She taught her first ESL class in Azerbaijan, and later at UTA and the University of Dallas (ESL and French at both). In 2010, she taught in Russia for a year. Then, she taught at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates several years. Returning to the U.S., she taught ESL at Richland College. In 2018, while teaching French for a year at UNT, she began teaching ESL at Collin College, where she remains. Her early experience studying French in Switzerland helps her understand her students’ experience here. She has a BA in French, an MA in French, and an MA in TESOL. One of her interests is making new activities and approaches to teaching. Another is learning new languages.
Kathryn Guerrero
Kathryn Guerrero received her MA in TESOL at UTA. She teaches at the English Language Institute at UTA and has been a private ESL and leadership tutor in the business world. Kathryn is passionate about teaching ESL, enjoys being creative, and is up for any challenge.
Shelby Miller
Dr. Shelby Miller is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at East Texas A&M University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in TESOL and linguistics and coordinates the undergraduate minor in TESOL. She brings extensive experience in professional communication, outreach, and community building across TESOL and applied linguistics contexts. Dr. Miller previously served on the TexTESOL V Board as Technology Coordinator (2019–2022) and has continued to support professional organizations through social media and digital communication work focused on keeping members informed, connected, and engaged.
Veronica Law
Veronica Law is a passionate advocate for multilingual learners and the educators who support them, having held diverse roles such as Director of World Languages and Bilingual/ESL Coordinator. Currently, she serves as a U.S. Department of State Virtual English Language Educator. Veronica holds an M.Ed. in Bilingual Education and Principal Certification and has led major TexTESOL initiatives, including the 2023 state conference. She continues to champion high-quality English language teaching locally and globally. Veronica is dedicated to inspiring and equipping multilingual learners and leaders to thrive.
Min Yu
Min Yu is a current Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics at East Texas A&M University, and she graduated with her M.Ed. from The University of Hong Kong. She is interested in research on Collaborative Digital Multimodal Composing, Computer-mediated Collaborative Writing, Co-regulated Writing Strategy Use, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Teacher Willingness and Perspectives, and Student Motivation and Perceptions.
Kyle Larson
Kyle Larson started learning Spanish in high school in Washington State, and that was where his language journey began. He attended Western Oregon University, earning a double major in Spanish language and English Linguistics, as well as a certificate to teach English as a foreign language. This was his ticket to adventure, leading him to teach EFL in Mexico, teach in China for a year, and at a language school in Colombia. Stateside, he earned his MA in teaching from Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, taught there for a year, and has taught English language in 3 high schools. For the past three years, Kyle has been building and working on his reading platform, AIR Language. This past May, he moved to work fulltime as the CEO and head salesman of AIR Language.
Salvatore Attardo
Dr. Salvatore Attardo (PhD in English Linguistics; Purdue University, 1991) is professor of Linguistics at East Texas A&M University. He has published seventeen books and over 100 articles on various topics, primarily in semantics and pragmatics. His main focus is humor studies, but he is also active in English grammar, pragmatics, multimodality, and eye tracking. He is an experienced editor who currently serves as the editor of the Routledge Advances in Language and Humor book series. In addition, he has published extensively, with recent TESOL-related work including Pragmatics and its applications to TESOL and SLA (Wiley, 2020), co-authored with Lucy Pickering. His latest book is Publish and Thrive: Demystifying Academic Writing (Cambridge University Press, 2026), co-authored with Gironzetti, Ergul, and Geronimo. His Open Access textbook English Grammar Foundations can be downloaded at “English Grammar Foundations” by Salvatore Attardo
Batool Abukhadair
Batool Mansour Abukhadair is a PhD student in Computational Linguistics at East Texas A&M University and a Graduate Assistant Teacher of Record in College Reading and Writing. Her work bridges computational approaches to language with TESOL, pragmatics, and pedagogy, examining how meaning, writing, and interaction are shaped across multilingual and technology-mediated contexts. With professional experience in classrooms and writing centers in both the United States and Jordan, she brings a cross-cultural and analytically grounded perspective to language education and scholarly communication. Dedicated to editorial excellence and precise academic discourse, Batool proudly serves TexTESOL V as Publications Copy Coordinator.