Marija Petrovic is one of the founding teachers of the School of Serbian Language and Culture in San Diego, California. She teaches Serbian as a heritage language at the school and also develops curriculum and coordinates professional growth activities. She holds a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics from San Diego State University (SDSU) and a Bachelor's degree in Teaching English Language and Literature from her native Serbia, where she worked as a language instructor and an interpreter. Since completing the SDSU Master's program, she has gained extensive experience in teaching English for Academic Purposes to speakers of other languages, as well as linguistics, English, and ESL. Her research includes genre analysis, discipline-specific vocabulary, and discourse analysis of law school lectures, which she has presented and published. She is the organizer of the First Annual Seminar for Teachers of Heritage Languages Less Commonly Spoken in the San Diego Area, gathering teachers from Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Polish, Russian, and Serbian schools. She is the mother of three young children and enjoys spending time at the beach with her family.