Vanessa began with the IRC as an independent contractor in 2022 and joined the team as a full time Education Specialist in 2023.

In 2000, Vanessa began her teaching career and over the years has served as an instructional coach, assistant principal and bilingual director in the Chicago and suburban area. Vanessa’s experience has been focused on serving multilingual learners at the school and district level. She has a B.A. in Secondary Education in the teaching of Spanish as a World Language from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a M.A. in Educational Leadership & Change Management as well as a M.A. in Dual Language Teacher Leadership from Roosevelt University. Vanessa draws on her experience as a teacher and administrator to deliver high quality professional development that will empower educators to develop equitable educational experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse populations.