Alma Flor Ada

Dr. Alma Flor Ada is Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, where she has been a Distinguished Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies in Multicultural Education. She has devoted her life to promoting a pedagogy oriented to personal realization and social justice, a mission now carried on by her former students in their own positions as teacher educators. The founder and first editor-in-chief of NABE, the journal of the National Association of Bilingual Education, Dr. Ada has long been a visionary in the field of bilingual/dual language education. A former Radcliffe Scholar at Harvard University and Fulbright Research Scholar, she is an internationally renowned speaker.

With a Ph.D. in literature and a lifelong love of stories, Alma Flor Ada is the author of more than 200 children’s books of poetry, narrative, plays, and nonfiction. Her books have received many prestigious awards, including the Christopher Medal, the Pura Belpré Medal, and the NCSS-CBC Notable Book Award. In 2012, she received the very prestigious Virginia Hamilton Award. Dr. Ada’s A Magical Encounter: Latino Children's Literature in the Classroom is one of her many pedagogical publications. She has received numerous recognitions for her contributions to education, including the American Education Research Association (AERA) Hispanic Issues Award for Research in Elementary, Secondary, and Postsecondary Education, 2008; the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) Lifetime Achievement Award, 2008; the California Council for Higher Education 2011 Award; and the American Association for Hispanics in Higher Education Literary Award, 2012.

Alma Flor Ada partners with ARC to design Spanish programs and classroom libraries for bilingual, dual language, and world language classroo