Sonia Nieto

Sonia Nieto is Professor of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She has been a teacher for 35 years, teaching students at all levels from elementary grades through graduate school. Her research focuses on multicultural education, the education of Latinos, immigrants, and other culturally and linguistically diverse students, and Puerto Rican children's literature. Her books include Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (3rd ed., 2000), The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities (1999), and Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools (2000). She has also published numerous book chapters and articles in such journals as Educational Forum, The Harvard Educational Review, Multicultural Education, and Theory into Practice. She serves on several national advisory boards that focus on educational equity and social justice, including Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) and Educators for Social Responsibility (ESR). She has received many awards for her advocacy and activism, including the 1989 Human and Civil Rights Award from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the 1995 Drylongso Award for Anti-Racist Activists from Community Change in Boston, the 1996 Teacher of the Year Award from the Hispanic Educators of Massachusetts, and the 1997 Multicultural Educator of the Year Award from NAME, the National Association for Multicultural Education. She was an Annenberg Institute Senior Fellow (1998-2000) and she received an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts in May, 1999. In June, 2000, she was awarded a month-long residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy. She is married to Angel Nieto, a former teacher and author of children's books, and they have two daughters and six grandchildren.

Karen Gelzinis

Karen Gelzinis has been a teacher in the Boston Public School System for thirty years. She has been an elementary school teacher, a reading teacher, and for the past eighteen years, a math teacher at The English High School. She was awarded a Golden Apple, a district wide teaching award, and was named Magnet School Teacher of the Year for her service to the Boston Public Schools. She believes that she is a better math teacher because she was a reading teacher first, and counts among her successes that she was co-author Sonie Felix's teacher.