Dari Escandell Maestre (les Valls del Vinalopó, 1982), PhD in Language Studies and senior lecturer at the University of Alacant's Department of Catalan Studies.

His research career, endorsed by two CNEAI research assessment periods (sexenios), has been marked by a preferential dedication to children’s and young adult literature. Since the publication of Hàbits i tendències de lectura en el sistema educatiu valencià (2015), a popular science monograph derived from his doctoral dissertation, he has analysed the factors conditioning literary reading in the school context. He has taken part in six national R&D projects on autobiographical literature, virtual public epitexts, the construction of the non-academic literary canon, and female autofiction, complemented by research on cultural studies and picture books. These lines of inquiry have resulted in numerous books and book chapters with high SPI indicators, as well as around twenty articles published in prestigious journals indexed in WoS, Scopus, SCImago, FECYT Seal of Quality, and other international databases.

He has participated in nearly fifty international conferences held at European universities and has served on the organising committees of around thirty more, most of them also with an international scope. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia.

In the field of knowledge transfer, he has advised the Fundació FULL on the Pla Valencià de Foment del Llibre i la Lectura and curated an institutional exhibition on children’s picture books aimed at mediators and reading promoters.

As regards university management, he served as Deputy Vice-Rector in the Governing Team of the Universitat d’Alacant (2016–2020) and as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Education (2013–2016). He is currently Academic Deputy Secretary of the Governing Board of the IIFV and Secretary of its local branch.

His teaching career has unfolded entirely within higher education, comprising 21 full-time academic years and around 3,500 teaching hours delivered in master’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, former licenciatura and diplomatura programmes, as well as in international Erasmus+ Teaching Staff exchanges. He currently has three 6-year and five 3-year teaching activity periods, and has obtained the excellence distinction in all six editions of the Docentia programme (ANECA) held to date, in addition to around fifty publications on university teaching innovation.

He has been recently accredited as a university professor by the Spanish Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA).