Maria is a Spanish instructor at the University of South Carolina Upstate. She graduated from Universitat Jaume I, Spain, and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in translation and interpreting studies in Spanish, Catalan, English and German. She has more than six years of experience teaching Spanish and intro to translation and interpreting. She is a Ph.D. candidate and her research interests center on educational interpreting and pedagogy in translation and interpreting studies. Maria incorporates in-class pedagogical innovative projects, and technology-intensive teaching-learning methodologies as part of the Quality Enhancement Plan and Active Learning cohorts. She also creates a service-learning component in her translation and interpreting courses, through which her students provide translation and interpretation services in the South Carolina Upstate in order to support non-profit organizations’ outreach into the area’s Hispanic community.