Biography

Tatyana Kleyn, Professor

Tatyana Kleyn is professor in the Bilingual Education and TESOL Programs and founding faculty advisor to the Dream Team at The City College of New York. She has an Ed.D. in international educational development from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her dissertation – focused on the intersections of bilingual and multicultural education in Chinese, Haitian, Russian and Spanish  bilingual classrooms – earned an Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE).

Tatyana received the early career award for the Bilingual Research SIG for the American Educational Research Association (AERA). For 2014-15 she served as president of the New York State Association for Bilingual Education (NYSABE) and was a Fulbright Scholar in Oaxaca, Mexico. Tatyana is PI for the CUNY- Initiative on Immigration and Education (CUNY-IIE, pronounced ‘eye’), a NYSED funded project that aims to support immigrants and educators to  learn about current immigration issues, act in ways that center our collective humanity, and advocate for equitable policies for all people regardless of immigration status. Tatyana is also co-PI for the Building Secondary Educator Leadership for Multilingual Learners (B-SEAL), which works in collaboration with New Visions for Public Schools to support secondary content teachers to better teach their bilingual students and administrators to create bilingual programs or approaches that allow students to earn the seal of biliteracy.  Tatyana was research associate and acting co-PI for the CUNY - New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY-NYSIEB), which supports educators across NY in developing students bilingualism as a resource and creating school-wide multilingual ecologies, as well as co-PI for the Multilingual Learner Project (MLP).

Tatyana’s most recent book is “Living, Learning and Languaging Across Borders: Students Between the US and Mexico.” She has also published books and articles on translanguaging, bilingual education, and immigration. Tatyana is the director and producer of the Supporting Immigrants in Schools video series, Living Undocumented series and Una Vida, Dos Países [One Life, Two Countries]: Children and Youth (Back) in Mexico. Tatyana has published about the education of the Garífuna in Honduras and students labeled ‘Long-Term English Learners’ in NYC secondary schools. She was an elementary school teacher in San Pedro Sula, Honduras and Atlanta, Georgia. She also enjoys adventures that include surfing, yoga and traveling, which she documents on her Youtube Channel.