Monica is a Seattle native with a passion for languages and culture. She attended the University of Washington and graduated with degrees in theoretical linguistics and historical Romance linguistics with a focus on Spanish. As a graduate student, she worked closely with the director of the Spanish program at the University of Washington and was a part of the team that created the Center for Spanish Studies alongside the Spanish Ministry of Education. She has been teaching Spanish for over 20 years, first in local post-secondary institutions and more recently in independent schools in the Seattle area. Monica has deep connections with the Pacific Northwest world language teaching community and frequently attends local and national conferences to strengthen those connections and grow professionally. She also has collaborated with the Seattle Latino Film Festival to bring free festival screenings to school communities. When she is not teaching, Monica enjoys traveling and has lived in Mexico and spent extensive time traveling in Spain; she has also led service learning trips with students to Costa Rica. In her free time, Monica is obsessed with word games and logic puzzles.