All keynote sessions will take place in the auditorium in the Campus Instructional Facility on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus and are open to all community members and educators. Click here for location and address.
Parking will be available at the North Campus Parking Garage on the southwest corner of University and Goodwin in Urbana.
2025 TEACH Academy Keynotes
Wednesday, July 16 at 9:00 a.m.
Marlee Bunch, Ed.D.
Interdisciplinary educator, scholar and author of The Magnitude of Us.
With over a decade of teaching experience at the secondary and post-secondary levels, Dr. Marlee Bunch has continuously worked to ensure that students receive equitable and rigorous instruction and mentorship.
Bunch obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Illinois in Education, Policy, Organization, and Leadership with an emphasis in diversity and equity. Additionally, she holds her M.Ed. in secondary education from DePaul University and an M.S. in Gifted Education. Bunch also holds an ESL (English as a Second Language) certification.
Dr. Bunch is an advocate for students and educators and uses writing and history to encourage dialogue and self-reflection. Her research focuses on Black female educators in Mississippi who taught between 1954-1970. Her publications include The Magnitude of Us (Teachers College Press, 2024), Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era (University of Illinois Press, 2025), and Leveraging AI for Human-Centered Learning: Culturally Responsive and Social-Emotional Classroom Practice in Grades 6-12, co-authored with Brittany R. Collins, (Routledge, 2025).
Thursday, July 17 at 9:00 a.m.
Margarita Machado-Casas, Ph.D.
SDSU Professor of Dual Language and English Learner Education
Dr. Margarita Machado Casas is a full Professor in the Dual Language and English Learner Education Department. She completed her Ph.D. at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed the prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at Frank Potter Graham (FPG) Research Institute at Duke University. Her research interests include immigrant, transnational indigenous and Bilingual/Multilingual education, and minority agency in the fields of education, literacy, assessment/evaluation, community/family engagement. Dr. Machado-Casas is the editor of several prestigious journals, and edits the “Critical issues in Education around the world book series” with Peter Lang. She is the Co-Chair and creator of the National Bilingual Education Student Organization (BESO), the largest bilingual education student organization in the US. She was proudly born in Bluefields, Nicaragua.