Yokaira López-Tifa

Affiliation

UMass Amherst

Biography

Yokaira López-Tifa is an instructor and research assistant at UMass-Amherst. She has over nine years of experience teaching English and Spanish in multilingual Pk-12 teaching environments as in Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Massachusetts. Her multicultural educational background between Puerto Rico, Spain, and Massachusetts led her to go for an M.Ed in Educational Leadership, following her Children, Families & Schools Ph.D. Her research focuses on documenting Latinxs’ bilingual educators' experiences, and how their path and challenges of becoming a bilingual teacher are different from those of a traditional teacher classroom after the shift in policy in Massachusetts. She is part of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Students Management Team, co-chair of the Graduate Student Advisory, and the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engage Research Team. Also, she has been working as a research assistant for the Engaging STEM Interest in the Massenberg STEM Institute for High School Students project. Also, she works in a Dual Language Program as part of the Curriculum Team Leader for the curriculum framework and supports bilingual teachers. In her spare time, she enjoys participating in volunteer work supporting multilingual communities creating a safe space, and supporting them in growing their home language. A proudly Afro-Caribbean Latina and first-generation Puerto Rican-Dominican woman who hopes to inspire others to become teachers and support bilingual teachers to encourage Black/Brown and Latinx students to be multilingual and attend college.