Dr. Idalia Nuñez (President)
Idalia Nuñez is an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a Chicana/Latina scholar from the Texas-Mexico borderlands and a former bilingual elementary teacher with experiences that have shaped her understanding and interest in bilingual and biliteracy education. Her research is at the intersection of race, bi/multilingualism and bi/literacies, border crossing, education, and social justice. She focuses on the school experiences of bi/multilingual students from diverse backgrounds, exploring and examining the everyday cultural and linguistic resources that they bring into K-5 biliteracy classrooms. By highlighting their strengths, she offers educators ways to build upon them, creating more socially and linguistically just teaching and learning experiences for all students. Her research has been published in Research Reading Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, Language Arts, and Anthropology and Education Quarterly.
Dr. Roberta Price Gardner (Vice President)
Roberta Price Gardner is an Associate Professor of Literacy & Reading Education at Kennesaw State University. Her research and writing explore the intersection of identity, access, and representation in children’s literature, with a particular focus on how these dimensions influence the reading experiences of students and teachers. She is a former school librarian who supports not only what people read and how they read, but also the broader communal cultures of reading that shape literacy experiences across diverse communities. Her work pays particular attention to the cultural and racialized contexts of reading, how race, culture, place, and power inform reading practices, preferences, and pedagogies. Through this lens, she seeks to address critical challenges in literacy education and promote more inclusive, equitable, and socially responsive approaches to reading.
Dr. Melissa L. García Vega (Membership)
Dr. Melissa L. García Vega is an assistant professor of Early Childhood and Childhood Education at Lehman College, the City University of New York (CUNY). Melissa’s research centers on storytelling traditions rooted in the Caribbean region and diasporas. Her research explores how locality, multilingualism, and transnational experiences inform language identities and development. Her work on Caribbean literature appears in Multicultural books for prek-grade three (Rowman Littlefield, 2023). She has also published in journals such as Voices from the Middle and the Journal of West Indian Literature. She is co-editor of the two-volume anthology on Caribbean children’s literature: Caribbean children’s literature: (Vol.1) History, pedagogy, and publishing and (Vol. 2) Critical approaches (University of Mississippi Press, 2023). She currently is involved in expanding how pre- and in-service teachers use children’s literature collections within the College library as part of their teacher preparation program.
Dr. Tran Templeton (Elections & Awards)
Dr. Tran Templeton is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood and a Faculty Co-Director of the Rita Gold Early Childhood Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. A multidisciplinary scholar, Tran’s research is concerned with the aesthetics of childhood—from photographs of and by children to children’s play and literacies. She has published her work in journals such as Harvard Ed Review, Children’s Geographies, and Language Arts. She is an Associate Editor of Exceptional Children and has served in various capacities within AERA, the Literacy Research Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English.
Dr. Daniel E. Ferguson (Finance Chair)
Daniel E. Ferguson is an Associate Professor in the Inclusive Early Childhood Education Program at George Mason University. Drawing on his experience as an early childhood and elementary teacher in Birmingham, Hiroshima, and New York City, Daniel’s research examines early literacy curriculum by tracing the myriad networks of people, materials and other forces that influence it—from the stacks in a teacher’s closet to the policies that put them there. By applying critical and material theories to early literacy curriculum and teacher education, his work advocates for more equitable and just literacy engagements for children, teachers, and families. His writing has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Literacy Research, Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Curriculum Studies, and Rethinking Schools. He is a member of the Literacy Research Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. He also serves on the International Exchange Committee of the Japan Education Research Association.
Dr. Seongryeong Yu (Communications Chair)
Seongryeong Yu is an Assistant Professor in the Early Childhood and Elementary Education Program and Director of the Literacy Research and Development Center in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Old Dominion University. Her research explores literacy as a spatial and relational practice across physical, social, and digital contexts. Her scholarship focuses on early childhood and elementary literacy, multilingual and multicultural learning, and the ways digital and AI-mediated spaces are reshaping literacy practices and learning. Drawing on sociomaterial and posthuman perspectives, she explores how children, educators, technologies, and environments collectively shape literacy, identity, and belonging. Her work has appeared in journals such as Pedagogy, Culture & Society, Language, Culture and Curriculum, and Journal of Research on Technology in Education. She seeks to support collaborative scholarly dialogue and expand conversations around language, literacy, and educational futures.
Adrienne Vitullo (Graduate Student Representative)
Adrienne Vitullo is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Drawing on her experience as an educator, instructional coach, teacher educator, and professional development facilitator for youth development organizations, she examines how students and educators co-construct learning and identity in complex, diverse contexts. Vitullo employs participatory and qualitative methodologies, as well as multimodal approaches to both research and literacy, to explore the social, cultural, and technological dimensions of literacy practices. Her recent work has been published in Reading Research Quarterly, where she collaborates with a research team to examine algorithmic linguistic oppression and its impact on equity in writing instruction and literacy education. Vitullo’s research contributes to critical theoretical discourses on literacy, educational equity, and the politics of knowledge production in alternative and nontraditional educational spaces.