Maricel Santos, Ed.D.

Associate Professor of English

Center for Vulnerable Populations

Maricel G. Santos, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of English at San Francisco State University, where she teaches in the M.A. in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Program and the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership Program. Since 2008, she has been a research scholar supported by a Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) grant from the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health, to San Francisco State University. Her RIMI research explores adult ESL participation as a health-protective factor in transnational immigrant communities, as well as the ways that adult ESL learners can serve as agents of change in health care. In collaboration with the California Diabetes Program, she is studying the effects of peer support networks and innovative curricula on diabetes prevention and awareness among beginning-level adult ESL learners (a project supported by a multi-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). She has experience working in family literacy, workplace education, post-secondary academic ESL settings, and university and high school EFL (English-as-a-Foreign-Language) settings. At SF State, she oversees the Certificate in Immigrant Literacies Program, a unique practitioner training program that combines training in literacy research/theory with meaningful civic action.

Maricel has an Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology, with a focus on Language and Literacy, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in TESOL from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a B.A. in English Literature from Swarthmore College.