Board Candidates for 2023

Voting is now closed.

Below are the WAESOL Board positions open for 2023.

President Elect (one-year term followed by a one-year term as President and one-year as Past-president)
Member-at-Large positions (two-year term)

Candidate Bios:

For President-Elect:

Rosemary Colon

Rosemary Colón is an ESL educator and currently WAESOL board secretary. Having attended the MATESOL program at Gonzaga University, she has been able to build on her experience over the last 4 years teaching in university and community settings in the Spokane area where she currently resides after having spent most of her life in the Bay Area, California. Rosemary has also worked with KSPS PBS as an education consultant developing curriculum and facilitating workshops. She is an advocate not only for ELs but for education by taking an interest in policy and advocacy learning how educators can build support for their students and communities. She continues to add to her experience and learning through conferences such as WAESOL, collaborating with her peers, being creative with tech resources like Twitter.

For Member-at-Large: (Four open positions)

Catherine Kelly, Shelton School District

Cat Kelly is the Multilingual Education Coordinator for Shelton School District at the south end of the Olympic Peninsula. She has been working with multilingual students and their families in the K-12 setting for seven years. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and is passionate about multilingual students accessing all educational spaces. She lives in Olympia, WA with her husband, 5-year old son, and big dog. Cat is currently serving as an interim member-at-large on the WAESOL Board.

James Hunter, Gonzaga University

James Hunter has taught ESL/EFL for over 30 years in the USA, Japan, Spain, the UAE, and the UK. He is the director of the MA in TESOL program at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, and has taught in that program for 20 years. He is also the director of the B.Ed. in Community, Culture, and Language degree in the School of Education at Gonzaga. He has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham, UK, and his research interests include: Second Language Acquisition, corrective feedback, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, instructional technologies, and teacher development. James is currently serving as an interim member-at-large on the WAESOL Board.

Wing Shuen Lau, Seattle Pacific University

Wing Shuen is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at Seattle Pacific University. Her studies focus on culturally responsive practices, social-emotional learning, and multilingual education. She earned her WA State Teacher Certification with endorsements in Elementary Education, ELL, and World Languages. She has taught diverse students over the years in public school districts. Her teaching experience has been with learners in a variety of educational settings, including tutoring centers, after-school programs, language institutes, public schools, and colleges. The students she taught were of multiple ages (PreK-12 and post-secondary), skill levels (from Basic English to Native), and backgrounds (e.g., students with special needs, international students studying English, students who study English as a foreign language, U.S.-born students who speak a language other than English at home, refugee and immigrant students). She holds a master’s degree in TESOL and has published articles in journals in the field of education.

Jenny Ahn, Pullman Public Schools

Jenny is an ELD Specialist at Pullman Public Schools and also works with pre-service teachers who are earning their ELL endorsements at Washington State University. She earned her Bachelors in Arts in Elementary Education in 2018 and Masters in Education in Instructional Design in 2020. As a former ELL student in Washington public schools, Jenny has a passion for the students who are learning English and as a result, it drove her into the education field. Jenny hopes to work with other educators and policy makers in the state one day to create a more equitable environment for ELL students.

Grace Blum, Seattle Pacific University

Grace Inae Blum is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction-ELL/Bilingual Education at Seattle Pacific University. Her experiences as a daughter of first-generation Korean immigrants, mother to two school-aged, biracial children, and former P-12/ Adult Literacy educator greatly inform her commitments toward culturally sustaining teaching, scholarship, and service. Prior to her work as a teacher educator, she was an elementary school teacher having worked in both bilingual and mainstream classrooms in public schools in the greater Chicagoland and Los Angeles areas. She has also worked as an adult literacy/ESL educator both in immigrant communities in the US and in northern Iraq. Most recently, Dr. Blum was an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood/ Elementary/ TESL-Bilingual Education at Central Washington University. Her current research interests include humanizing teacher education, teacher preparation for culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and the recruitment/retention of BIPOC educators.

Anny Case, Gonzaga University

Anny Fritzen Case is a faculty member at Gonzaga University in the Department of Teacher Education. A former middle and high school teacher, she has taught English to children in Russia, to youth in public and private secondary schools in Utah, and to adults in various settings (intensive English program, community college, community-based classes) in Utah, Michigan, and Washington. In her present role as a teacher educator, she enjoys working alongside preservice teachers in local middle schools. Her scholarship focuses on secondary multilingual learners, particularly ways teachers and schools can provide access to equitable and intellectually rich instruction. She is currently involved in projects focused on improving the school experience for Marshallese students.

Hanna Hong, University of Washington

Hanna Hong is a doctoral candidate of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on multilingual learners, teacher instruction, and school organization to ensure multilingual learners experience equitable education. Currently she serves as an instructor and instructional coach across various Seattle based university teacher education programs. Prior to this role, she served as a multilingual instructional coach and classroom teacher.

Ali Asiri, Washington State University

Ali Asiri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Language, Literacy, and Technology program at Washington State University. He has a BA in English Language, an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from Gonzaga University, and he is now pursuing a Ph.D. degree with a focus on Educational Technology for English Language teachers. Ali’s research interests include CALL, Teacher Education, and Educational Technologies.