Mariana Castro

Facilitator Presenter

Mariana Castro is a Curriculum Designer & Instructor for the Discussion Project. She serves as Co-Director for the Multilingual Learning Research Center at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Education Policy Studies Department.

Mariana brings more than 35 years of experience in education, including as a former science teacher, language specialist, and bilingual educator. Throughout her career, she has engaged in curriculum and instruction, teacher preparation and professional learning in the areas of science, language development and bilingual education.

In her research, Mariana integrates her background as an educator, her passion for working with multilingual children, youth and their teachers, and her commitment to social justice. Over the last 14 years, her work has also involved policy work related to the education of multilingual learners, including the development of language proficiency standards in Spanish and English.

Mariana has a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She currently serves as the principal investigator for research on integrating language with core teaching practices, curriculum, and instruction in dual language immersion programs, and on preparing future and current teachers to support multilingual students.