Gabriela Cecilia Zapata

Dr. Gabriela C. Zapata was born in Rosario, Argentina, and she moved to the United States in 1994. She received her PhD in Spanish (Linguistics track) from the Pennsylvania State University in 2002. She is an ADVANCE Administrative Fellow in the Office for Diversity and Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University. Her research foci are second (L2) and heritage language (HL) pedagogy, bilingualism, and teacher education. She is also involved in the development and implementation of inclusive open educational resources for the teaching of Spanish as a L2 and HL and Spanish for the Professions. Dr. Zapata has served as Director or Coordinator of six Spanish and Portuguese basic language programs in public and private universities in the United States and Canada. Throughout her career, she has published articles on bilingualism, L2 and HL pedagogy, and teacher cognition and practice in journals such as Computer Assisted Language Learning, Foreign Language Annals, The International Journal of Bilingualism, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Language, Culture, and Curriculum, Language Learning, and Language Awareness, among others, and in a variety of edited volumes. Dr. Zapata is the main author of the first Canadian edition of Puntos de partida and of both volumes of the OER L2 Spanish textbook Trayectos (published digitally by COERLL). She is also the co-editor (with Dr. Manel Lacorte) of the volume Multiliteracies Pedagogy and Language Learning: Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Her co-authored (with Dr. Mary Kalantzis and Dr. Bill Cope) book Las alfabetizaciones múltiples: Teoría y práctica was published in December 2019 by Editorial Octaedro. At present, she is working on a single-authored book on Learning by Design and L2 education under contract with Routledge. Dr. Zapata received her certification as ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Tester in Spanish in 2014. She has also served as an ACTFL mentor and the Vice-Chair and Chair of ACTFL’s Spanish for Heritage Learners Special Interest Group. At present, she holds the position of Past-Chair in this group's leadership. In 2019, she was awarded the SGA Open Education Champion Award by the Student Government Association at Texas A&M University. Dr. Zapata is also a CIMER Entering Mentoring Trained Facilitator.