Yaitza Rodríguez
Mentor: Serafín M. Coronel-Molina
Yaitza's deep respect for formal education, her belief in its pivotal role in human development, and her eagerness to contribute to an educational paradigm shift has driven her to pursue a second doctoral degree in Literacy, Language, and Culture with a minor in Learning and Developmental Sciences. Yaitza holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature, an M.A. in Communication Theory and Research, and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Puerto Rico. Her doctoral dissertation, titled The Origins of Spanish Caló: a cognitive grammar analysis of word formation in Iberian Romani, was awarded by the Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española. Over the past decade, she has worked as a college instructor of Applied Linguistics in Spanish. In addition, she has held roles as a middle-school teacher, content developer for Spanish textbooks, mentor for public school teachers, assessment developer, workshop instructor on reading comprehension, and educational speaker on teaching strategies for K-8 teachers. Before embarking on this educational journey, she worked as a reporter, editor, and corporate communications specialist.
She aims to investigate how the cognitive, language, and cultural domains are interconnected in learning. This study will inform the curriculum design in literacy and shed light on developing effective teaching strategies in biliteracy for the instruction of bicultural learners in school settings. Also, she seeks to provide advice and support to practitioners from underserved communities in the USA and Puerto Rico and foster collaborative projects between higher education and public schools to improve schooling outcomes for learners from underrepresented groups. Besides teaching, Yaitza loves to run long-distance races, ride her mountain bike, swim on the beautiful beaches of Puerto Rico, and write short stories with meaningful messages for children."