She came to the U.S. as a political refugee from the Soviet Union as a child. In 2007 she received an Ed.D. in international educational development at Teachers College, Columbia University, where her research focused on the intersections of bilingual and multicultural education in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese and Russian bilingual classrooms. She is the author of “Immigration: The Ultimate Teen Guide” (Scarecrow Press, 2011) and co-author of “Teaching in Two Languages: A Guide for K-12 Bilingual Educators” with Adelman Reyes (Corwin Press, 2010). She has also published about the cultural, linguistic and educational needs of the Garífuna people in Honduras. Tatyana has studied ‘Long-Term English Learners’ in NYC secondary schools. She was an elementary school teacher in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and Atlanta, Georgia.