Conference Plenary Speakers

Professor of Education, Associate Dean of Graduate Division, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education

Biography: Dr. Jin Sook Lee is a Professor of Education at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and holds affiliate faculty positions in the Departments of Linguistics and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, she serves as the Associate Dean of the Graduate Division. Her scholarly work centers on the maintenance of heritage languages within immigrant communities in the United States, with a particular focus on the sociocultural factors that influence the development of bilingualism in children. Her extensive body of work includes The Education of Language Minority Immigrants in the U.S. (Multilingual Matters, 2009) and Feeling It: Language, Race, and Affect in Latinx Youth Learning (Routledge, 2018), as well as numerous articles on heritage language maintenance across diverse immigrant populations. A former Fulbright Scholar in Applied Linguistics, she is also the founder of the Santa Barbara Korean Language School.

Presentation: Bridging Resources and Relationships: Strengthening Community-Based Schools through University-Community Partnerships

 

NCSSFL's Neural Network

Biography: Tom Welch is a lifelong educator and innovator who has spent his career pushing the boundaries of traditional schooling. A former Kentucky Teacher of the Year and high school principal, Tom is known for his bold, learner-centered leadership—greeting students at the bus each morning and requiring all administrators, including himself, to teach daily. He led early breakthroughs in performance-based credits, 1:1 laptop programs, and global initiatives like ensuring that every senior receive a U.S. passport. As Director of Seeding Innovation for Kentucky’s Office for the New Economy, he pioneered projects linking education with global readiness, including the state’s first online Mandarin course and a national MOOC for high school physics. Here Tom focuses on Facilitated Interdependent Language Learning (FILL) and asset-based assessment, helping educators personalize learning around student strengths and proficiency. A longtime leader in the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages (NCSSFL), he champions a shift from schooling to true learning—powered by trust, technology, and learner agency.

Presentation: Every Learner, Every Language: Personalizing Progress with a FILL approach in Community-Based Schools