CURRENT STUDENTS

Andrea Hernandez (she/her/ella) was born and raised in Tunja, Colombia. In her home country, She pursued a BA in Foreign Languages Teaching focused on English and French. She wrote a thesis titled “Jaune, Bleu, Rouge: Le Chemin Vers un Nouvel Univers” in which the main objective was to create didactic material to teach French in Elementary School. She worked as an English and French teacher in public and private schools in Tunja, an experience that fostered her interest in education. In 2018, she was part of an exchange program in the U.S. where she was immersed in American and French culture. Since then, she has been interested in Intercultural encounters, diversity, migration, and Latinidad. Currently, she is a TA and RA part of the MLL program.

Viridiana Colosio (she/her/ella) –is an immigrant woman, a mother of two, and a graduate student. Born and raised in Caborca, Sonora, Mexico, she discovered her passion for teaching at a young age. At 18, she immigrated to Phoenix, Arizona, and earned an AA degree in Education in 2012. In 2018, she moved to Maryland with her family and resumed her teaching career at a Montessori Preschool in Ellicott City. In May 2022, she graduated from UMBC with a B.A. in Modern Languages and Linguistics with Honors and a Minor in Latin American Studies. As an undergrad, she was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award for her project, “Bilingualism and Cultural Identity in the Latinx Community: A Raciolinguistic Approach to the Experience of UMBC Spanish-English Bilingual” and the AADHum fellowship at the African American Digital & Experimental Humanities program at UMD. Currently, Viridiana is in the last year of the M.A. in Intercultural Communication, where she also teaches Spanish 101 as part of her T.A./G.A.ship. In the summer of 2023, she became a UMBC fellow for the Baltimore Field School Fellowship 2.0. Influenced by her journey, she focuses her work on the Latinx community’s experiences by embracing their cultural identity and facing discriminatory attitudes based on race and language in Baltimore.

Madison Pickard (she/ella) hails originally from Washington state, but has been moving around since she was 18 in effort to expand her global citizenship. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Second Language Acquisition Studies and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Madison served in the Peace Corps Ecuador from ‘16-‘18 where she worked as a teacher trainer in the TEFL program. Before coming to UMBC, she worked as a lecturer for the liberal arts department of a public university in Thailand, where she taught sociolinguistic classes regarding formation of pidgins and creoles, global studies, modern world issues, and more. At UMBC, she is a Peaceworker Fellow and works with the Center for Global Engagement on campus.

Gemma Garcia Parellada (she/her/ella) was born and raised in a small city near Barcelona, Spain. She pursued a BA in English Studies at the University of Barcelona and her BA thesis analyzed the work of two Caribbean authors from a queer perspective. During her undergraduate, she studied at the University of Manchester for a year and she also taught English and Spanish as a second language to different levels for five years. After that, she pursued a career in publishing, where she developed an interest in children’s books, rights, international communication and agenting. She enhanced her knowledge about the industry by completing a Postgraduate Course in Management and Marketing in Publishing at the Open University of Catalonia. Gemma also co-edited an academic issue (Blue Gum Journal) on Artistic Responses to Contemporary Social Movements in Chile and Puerto Rico. Her research interests are Caribbean literature, queer theory, ecocriticism, and decolonial feminisms and she is also interested in the political economy of the publishing industry. In 2023, she earned a Fulbright scholarship to study an MA in Intercultural Communication at UMBC. She speaks Catalan, Spanish, English and a bit of French and she is currently learning Haitian Creole.

Caleb Adrian Ruck (he/him) has lived in central Maryland all his life, graduating with a Bachelor’s in Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication from UMBC (focusing on Spanish, German and cultural anthropology). Along the way, he wrote a thesis titled “Identifying How Harmful Language Ideology Manifests and Spreads on Social Media Platforms” and illustrated various comics ranging from a queer, zombie-infested bildungsroman to a mixed-media synopsis of ethnographic data he collected on the communication patterns of queer Gen Zers. When he isn’t studying, teaching SPAN101 or working for Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion & Belonging (i3b), Caleb enjoys goaltending in ice hockey, playing video games and cooking.

Lina Alejandra Mora Oviedo (she/her/ella) is an international graduate student from Colombia and a Spanish teaching assistant in the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication. In her home country, she completed a B. A in Education and English language, and she also worked as an English teacher in public and private schools in Bogotá. Teaching in urban areas was a particularly enriching experience for her, as many of the students she taught faced socio-economic challenges. However, they demonstrated a genuine desire to learn despite the unfavorable conditions around them. In 2018, she was granted a PILA scholarship to study in Guadalajara, Mexico. From there it comes her interest in intercultural communication and training as she had the opportunity to interact with students from different cultural and language backgrounds. It was fascinating for her to observe behaviors, traditions, and beliefs that made each of these students unique; however, this process also made her more aware of some preconceived notions people had from her country and that were difficult to overcome. As a result, she consolidated her belief that developing intercultural skills is essential to communicate with others. Lina also holds a TESOL certificate from ASU and looks to explore the field of international education and cultural exchange advising.