Aída Walqui directs the Institute of Education Sciences, IES-funded National Research and Development Center for Improving the Education of English Learners in Secondary Schools housed at WestEd . There she started one of its signature programs, the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative. QTEL focuses on the development of educator expertise to support the development of elementary and secondary English Learners’ conceptual, analytic, and language practices in disciplinary subject matter areas.

Under her leadership, QTEL has been funded by federal and private institutions to develop and research professional development tools and processes which support the academic success of English Language Learners. Dr. Walqui taught in the Division of Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and at the School of Education, Stanford University. A native Peruvian, she received an MS in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University, and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She has ample experience in the field of second language teaching in schools and at the university level, nationally and internationally. She is the author of many books and articles, including the recent Reconceptualizing the Role of Critical Dialogue in American Classrooms. Promoting equity through dialogic education.

Throughout her career Dr. Walqui has received many honors, among them, in 2016 on the 50^th anniversary of the International TESOL Association, she was selected as one of the 50 most influential researchers in the last 50 years in the field of English Language development.