Eurydice Bauer, Ph.D.

Eurydice Bauer is Professor and the John E. Swearingen Chair of Education in the department of Teacher Education. She is the director of Bilingualism Matters at USC. Bauer is part of an international group linked by the Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE, 2016) that focuses on understanding how bilingualism impacts learning and cognition. Currently, Bauer is interested in understanding how the benefits of bilingualism can be leverage to better support low-income students’ learning. 

Yang Wang, Ph.D.

Yang Wang is an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. in Literacy and M.Ed. in TESOL from the University of Missouri.  She completed her B. A. in English Education in China and taught English as a Foreign Language there.  Her research focuses on reading comprehension, reading assessment, English language teaching and learning, and biliteracy. 

Lenny Sánchez, Ph.D.

Lenny Sánchez serves as co-Director of Bilingualism Matters at USC and is a faculty member in Language and Literacy Education in the Department of Teacher Education at University of South Carolina. His research focuses on intersections of literacy, inquiry, and social justice teaching and learning. More recent scholarship examines global literacies and bilingual learning.

Amit Almor, Ph.D.

Amit Almor is an Associate Professor at USC. His research areas are psycholinguistics, neuroimaging of language and language impairments, the processing of anaphoric expressions in discourse, sentence production and comprehension, lexical representations and processing, and the connection between language and memory.

Elizabeth Baez

Liz Lawrence-Baez currently serves as the Dual Language Immersion Lead Teacher at Polo Road Elementary School in Richland School District Two. Previously, she worked in Lexington School District One where she taught Spanish and German in their FLES programs, served as the Lead Teacher for World Languages, and taught Kindergarten/1st Grade German Immersion. Lawrence-Baez is also an adjunct instructor of German at the University of South Carolina. 

 A strong advocate for bilingual education and social justice, she engages with many local, regional, and national leaders in the Dual Language and Immersion education field to build strong and equitable programs. Her professional interests focus on teacher training, specifically international teachers, and biliteracy development among immersion students.

Lawrence-Baez holds a BA in German, an MAT in Foreign Language Teaching from the University of South Carolina and an Advanced Certificate in Dual Language and Immersion Education from the University of Minnesota.

Ernesto Bernal

Ernesto Bernal is originally from Colombia, South America. Bernal has been working in the United States for a decade trying to bring learning opportunities to students and teachers that open their minds to new challenges inside and outside of this country.

Bernal believes that learning new languages and discovering new cultures allows us to be not just bystanders, but real global citizens of a more interconnected world. Currently, Ernesto Bernal is the World Languages and ESOL Programs Coordinator for Richland School District One.

Mark A. Bounds

Mark A. Bounds is a native of Baltimore, Maryland. He received his undergraduate degree from Towson University and was commissioned as a Distinguished Military Graduate from the Johns Hopkins University ROTC program in 1980.  He spent the next twenty years serving our nation as an officer in the United States Army.  While in the Army, Mr. Bounds served tours of duty in the United States and Europe and earned numerous decorations and awards.

After transitioning from the Army, Bounds began a career in education.  His senior education positions include: South Carolina Department of Education Deputy Superintendent for School Effectiveness, State Director Communities in Schools of South Carolina, South Carolina Department of Education Director of School Leadership and Chief Information Officer School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties.  Bounds currently serves as the Head of Schools for East Point Academy.

Bounds possesses a Master of Science degree in Administration from Central Michigan University and a Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the College of Naval Command and Staff.  He is a graduate of the Center for Creative Leadership Education Leader Development Program, the International Center for Leadership in Education, the Riley Institute Diversity Leadership Initiative and is a South Carolina Education Policy Fellow.

He and his wife Kathleen are the proud parents of two grown children, April and David and the proud grandparents of four grandchildren, Addison, Eleanor, Natalie and Samuel.

Kara Brown, Ph.D.

Kara Brown teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in social foundations, comparative education and qualitative research methods. Her research focuses on language policy, minority schooling and teacher migration. Brown has well-established projects in Estonia with more recent lines in the U.S. Southeast. Her work appears in Anthropology of Education Quarterly, European Education, European Journal of Language Policy, as well as in edited volumes. Brown’s research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, Fulbright, the International Research and Exchange Board, the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, and the University of South Carolina.

Liza Speece, Ph.D.

Liza Speece is the Coordinator for World Languages and Dual Language Immersion for Lexington School District One. She was previously the World Language Teacher Support Specialist for Lexington One. Prior to this position, Liza taught Spanish at the elementary, secondary and college levels, third grade Spanish immersion, and ESOL at a variety of levels. She also taught Spanish and Service Learning at Columbia College.

Speece also teaches as an adjunct professor at USC in the College of Education and for the College of Charleston. Liza holds a B.A. in Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, an MAT in Foreign Language Teaching from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy from the University of South Carolina.

Dawn Samples

Dawn Samples is the World Languages and Dual Language Immersion Coordinator for Lexington School District One.  She provides professional development and support for the district's world language teachers of Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Russian, and Portuguese, as well as seven dual immersion sites (in French, German, Spanish and Chinese languages). Daawn works with business partners, post-secondary institutions,teachers, and other school districts in South Carolina and other states to plan for and implement new world language programs. 

Della Thigpen

Della Thigpen is the Language Immersion Lead Teacher in Richland School District One in Columbia, SC.  She coordinates the district's immersion program which offers Spanish and Chinese options for students beginning in Pre-Kindergarten.  Prior to Richland One, she taught internationally in China, and in a Chinese immersion school in Washington, DC.  

Haidy G. Diaz

Haidy G. Diaz is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy program at USC and a Graduate Research Assistant for USC's Teacher Education Department. Her research focus is on the inclusion of multicultural studies specifically relative to Language and Literacy and its impact on removing prejudices from society.

Valerie Byrd Fort

Valerie Byrd Fort is a Ph.D. student in the Language and Literacy program, and the Coordinator for Cocky's Reading Express, USC's Literacy Outreach Program. She teachers courses about children's literature to pre-service teachers and to future school and youth services librarians at the School of Information Science at USC. Her research focus is on diversity in children's literature.