Rafael Lara-Alecio, PhD, is a professor and director of the Bilingual Education Programs in the Department of Educational Psychology at Texas A&M University. His primary expertise is bilingual/ESL education, assessment and evaluation, and curriculum development and implementation for English learners. He is bilingual/biliterate and has authored and/or co-authored more than 100 publications, was an author on the DLM Early Childhood Express, and was a co-author of a pedagogical theory and model for transitional English bilingual classrooms. In addition, Dr. Lara-Alecio has served as principal investigator of multiple grants, including US Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and Costa Rica USA Foundation.