Erin L. Papa, Ph.D., is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Coalition for a Multilingual Rhode Island, which aims to create a culturally sustaining educational environment where all Rhode Island students learn in multiple languages from Pre-K to college. As a community activist, her research interests include the intersections of language, race, and (im)migration status; youth and educator participatory action research; heritage language education; and language education policy and planning. She has worked as an education consultant on projects indicative of her commitment to language education policy and programming that is reflective of community strengths, and she has taught multilingual learners in K-16 in public school and community spaces in the U.S., China, and Australia. Erin previously served as a faculty member and director of the World Languages Teacher Education Program at Rhode Island College and worked for the Chinese Flagship and International Engineering Programs at the University of Rhode Island. She speaks English, German, Spanish, and some Mandarin Chinese and is reclaiming her heritage language, Italian.