Dr. Melissa Cuba is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Maine’s College of Education and Human Development. She brings a wealth of experience as an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and special education teacher, during which she helped develop district-level programming to support multilingual learners with disabilities. Her commitment to this work continues through her efforts to help school professionals implement evidence-based practices and equitable policies that better serve these students.

As a critical scholar, Dr. Cuba draws on her lived experience as a former practitioner, including roles as a teacher, paraprofessional, and tutor, as well as her own background as a young multilingual learner. Her family immigrated to the Washington, DC, area from Peru when she was a student. She often writes about the challenges she faced navigating flawed systems, the inequities she observed as an educator and advocate, and how these experiences continue to shape her work as a researcher and teacher educator.