Affiliate Faculty Member
jaltavil@stanford.edu

Jennifer Altavilla began her career in education as a middle school English Language Development (ELD) Teacher at Excel Academy in Boston. Then she became the founding English Learner Program Director and lower elementary ELD Teacher at UP Academy Dorchester, also in Boston. She was the recipient of the 2015 UP Education Network Excellence in Teaching Award. While working at UP Academy, Jennifer was also a Sheltered English Immersion Course Instructor for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Her experiences as a teacher and instructional leader led Jennifer to pursue a PhD in Educational Policy at Stanford University. Her research focuses on online and hybrid models of professional development for educators of multilingual learners. She is also interested in digital learning tools for multilingual learners. During her doctoral studies, Jennifer has been a Field Mentor for the Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies Master’s Program. She also been the Project Manager for a research-practice partnership focused on increasing multilingual students’ access to advanced high school mathematics courses.

Jennifer has a BA from New York University, where she double majored in English Literature and Journalism and minored in Spanish. She earned her MEd from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. When she is not teaching or trying to finish her PhD, she can be found singing, baking, or watching baseball.