She earned her PhD and master’s degrees in Foreign Language and ESL Education from the University of Iowa, and was subsequently awarded the 2008 ACTFL-MLJ Emma Marie Birkmaier Award for Doctoral Dissertation. Before her graduate studies, she taught Spanish at the elementary, middle, and high school levels for six years. Her research concerns second language preparation and professionalization, language assessment and language program evaluation, K-16 educational policy, and teaching languages to students with differences. Email: shildeb@ilstu.edu