Magaly Lavadenz, Ph.D., is the Leavey Presidential Chair in Ethics and Moral Leadership and founding Executive Director of the Center for Equity for English Learners in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University. She serves as Co-Director of the first National Content Center on English Learners and Multilingualism funded by the US Department of Education. Her research addresses the intersections and impact of policies and practices for culturally and linguistically diverse students, their teachers and school leaders. Among her academic positions, she has served as founding director of the Spanish and Mandarin Bilingual Teacher Education and TESOL programs, Chair of Teacher Education and Founding Associate Director of the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership for Social Justice.

Her work is published in numerous articles, chapters and books, the most recent of which is The Observation Protocol for Academic Literacies (OPAL): A Tool for Supporting Teachers of English Learners in 2024, co-authored with Elvira Armas. Other book titles include Questioning our Practices: Bilingual Teacher-Researchers and Transformative Inquiry and Latino Civil Rights in Education: La Lucha Sigue, co-edited with Anaida Colón Muñiz.

She has held various leadership positions as President of Californians Together, California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), the California Association for Bilingual Teacher Education and the California Council on Teacher Education.

Dr. Lavadenz completed a Ph.D. in Education, specializing in Language, Literacy and Learning from the University of Southern California. Her K-12 teaching career includes serving as a bilingual paraprofessional, elementary bilingual educator, and as a K-12 English as a Second Language Teacher Specialist.