Senior lecturer in General Linguistics in the Department of Spanish Studies at the University of Alicante (UA), specialising in applied linguistics and Spanish as a foreign language (SFL). Her research focuses on acquisition and teaching of SFL, Spanish as a second language and immigration, assessment of language skills and curricula, academic Spanish as L2 and SFL teacher training.

Founder and current director of the Research Group in Additional Languages Acquisition at the UA (ACQUA), affiliated with the UA Institute for Modern Applied Languages (IULMA). She has participated in several research projects and directed 13 doctoral theses. She has completed a Salvador de Madariaga research stay at the University of Oxford (2017), as well as a stay at the University of Buenos Aires (2021), in both cases to conduct research in academic Spanish as L2. Member of the pool of experts of the Spanish National Research Agency.

She has an extensive and continuous career in research management and evaluation, including as an external reviewer for international publications and as a member of editorial and scientific boards of indexed journals. External reviewer for eleven scientific journals.

Positions: Vice Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the UA Faculty of Arts (2010-2014). External examiner of the Spanish Programme at the University of Hong Kong (2015-2018). Director of the journal Estudios de Lingüística. Universidad de Alicante (2009-2011) and current member of its Advisory Board. President of the Association for the Teaching of Spanish as a Foreign Language, ASELE (2008-2016), and current honorary member. UA academic representative to SICELE (International System for the Certification of Spanish as a Foreign Language) from 2010 to the present.

She has been a teacher and academic coordinator of the UA Spanish courses for foreigners, as well as a Spanish teacher at CIEE and an SFL teacher trainer. Besides teaching linguistics and applied linguistics courses on several UA undergraduate degrees, she is also a lecturer on the UA Master’s Degree in English and Spanish as a Second Language, where she has directed up to 50 Master’s theses. Moreover, she has taken part in postgraduate SFL courses at the universities of Salamanca, Alcalá de Henares, UIMP, Complutense University of Madrid and University of Barcelona. She has completed Erasmus mobility stays for teachers at the universities of Cork, Naples, Salerno, Düsseldorf, Athens and Szeged.

She regularly speaks at national and international conferences in her field. Organiser of the 17th ASELE International Conference (2007), the 2nd, 13th, 19th and 25th Linguistic Studies Conference (1998, 2011, 2017 and 2024) and the ACQUA Group Annual Conference. Scientific committee member and organiser of several conferences.

She has delivered courses and lectures as a guest speaker at the universities of Hong Kong; Shanghai; Brussels; Salzburg; UNAM and Guadalajara, Mexico; Concepción, Chile; Chulalongkorn, Thailand; Costa Rica; London; Oxford; Gothenburg; Buenos Aires; Mannheim; and Vienna.

She has published multiple books, as well as numerous research articles and book chapters. Her latest publications include: Español académico como LE/L2: destrezas, competencias y movilidad [“Academic Spanish as a foreign or second language: skills, competences and mobility”] (Routledge, 2023) and Metodología de la investigación en la enseñanza-aprendizaje del español como L2/LE [“Research methodology in the teaching-learning of Spanish as a second or foreign language”] (Arco, 2022, codirected with I. Santos Gargallo).