Jamal Abedi is a professor of education at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include studies in the areas of psychometrics and test and scale development. His recent works include studies on the validity of assessments, accommodations, and classification of English language learners. He is the author of many publications in the assessment of and accommodations for English language learners. He serves on assessment advisory boards for a number of states and assessment consortia as an expert on testing for English learners. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Professional Service Award in recognition of his “Outstanding Contribution Relating Research to Practice” by the American Educational Research Association and the 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award by the California Educational Research Association. He holds master’s and PhD degrees from Vanderbilt University in psychometrics.
Christian Faltis is the Dolly and David Fiddyment Chair in Teacher Education, director of teacher education, and professor of language, literacy and culture in the School of Education at University of California, Davis. He received his PhD in bilingual cross-cultural education from Stanford University. His research interests are bilingual learning in academic contexts, immigrant education, and critical arts-based learning. Chris earned a Distinguished Scholar Award from AERA in 2001. His recent books are Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth (with Chappell, 2013), Implementing Language Policy in Arizona (with Arias, 2012), and Education, Immigrant Students, Refugee Students, and English Learners (with Valdés, 2011). He also published “Art and Living Inquiry into Anti-immigration Discourse” in the International Journal of Multicultural Education, 2012. He serves as the editor of Teacher Education Quarterly. Chris is an oil painter whose work focuses on issues of Mexican immigrants and education.
