A native of Perú, Dr. Walqui holds a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford University. For over fifty years she has worked on the development of deep disciplinary practices in second languages.  She has taught at all levels and at universities in Perú, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the US. Dr. Aída Walqui directs the Teacher Professional Development Program at WestEd and one of its signature initiatives, the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL), focused on improving teacher and educational leadership ability to accelerate and deepen the linguistic and academic disciplinary achievement of English learners in American schools.  Dr. Walqui is the author of multiple articles and books, including Scaffolding the Academic Success of Adolescent English Learners. A pedagogy of promise; English Language Learners the New Standards: Developing language, content knowledge, and analytical practices in the classroom, published by Harvard Education Press; and her most recent, published in 2019 The Amplified Curriculum: Designing Quality Learning Opportunities for English Learners published by Teachers College Press.  Dr. Walqui is one of the founding partners of Stanford University’s Understanding Language Initiative. In 2016, on the 50th anniversary of the International TESOL Association, she was selected as one of the 50 most influential researchers in the last 50 years in the field of English Language teaching.