New Cabell Hall 464
Office Hours: Tues & Thurs 3:20-4:30pm & by appt

• B.A. in English from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid
• M.A. in Spanish (Latin American literature) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• M. A. in Amerindian Studies, Casa de América and the Universidad Complutense in Madrid.
• ABD in Spanish (Latin American literature) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Dissertation research on the literature of the Maya Movement in Guatemala.

Research interests, current courses, and current research projects

Prof. Esther Poveda Moreno’s current academic work relates to her teaching responsibilities at UVA. In addition to her original interest in twentieth century Latin American narrative, specifically indigenista novels, testimonial writing, social movements and human rights, and current indigenous cultural productions, she has done significant work on multiliteracies pedagogies for teaching writing at the advanced levels and on community engaged teaching and scholarship.

Prof. Poveda Moreno is the coordinator of SPAN 3010 (Finding your Voice in Spanish) and SPAN 3020 (Elevate your Spanish: Mastering Writing and Grammar). The full expression of her work developing and coordinating these courses will be an Open Educational Resource Language Learning textbook entitled La escritura: una manera de estar en el mundo. Genre-Based Writing for Advanced Spanish Students, which will be published in UVA Pressbooks in Summer 2025.

She is also the Community Outreach Coordinator of the department, and the creator of four community-based language learning (CBLL) courses which have been supported by the UVa Mellon Race, Place, and Equity program. The CBLL courses that she regularly offers in the Spring are:

• SPAN 3070 (Community Engagement in Spanish-Speaking Charlottesville).
• SPAN 3060 (Writing for Social Justice and Change).

In both courses, students volunteer as bilingual tutors and mentors for the UVa Equity Center Youth Power program Starr Hills Pathways.

Her work in community engaged classes has been featured in:

• “Faculty Spotlight: Woman of La Mancha Finds Her Calling Through Indigenous Literature, Service” (UVa Today 2019)
• The UVa Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) series Community-Engaged Teaching in a Time of Trauma.

Her current research project on community engaged teaching has been supported by UVA’s Center for Teaching Excellence’s Scholarship of Teaching of Learning (SoTL) program and focuses on student reflections on community work to identify key emotional shifts that occur in community-based language courses and the pedagogical strategies that connect community work experiences with course learning objectives to enhance student engagement. Finally, Dr. Lucy Montalvo (Director of Starr Hill Pathways) and she are co-authoring an article on the history of their long-standing collaboration that will appear in the forthcoming edited volume entitled How do we build that? An Interdisciplinary Toolbox for Humanities Practices, Projects, and Programs.

Publications

• Poveda, Esther. “Luis Cardoza y Aragón.” Modern Spanish American Poets. Editor María A. Salgado. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
• Poveda, Esther. “Otto Raúl González”. Modern Spanish American Poets. Editor María A. Salgado. Detroit: Gale, 2003.

Selected presentations and invited talks

• “Tracking Empathy and Compassion in Community-Based Language Courses: A Case Study”. American Association on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Chicago, November 2023.
• “Podcasts and Comunidad: A Multiliteracies Approach to Community Engagement.” American Association on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Boston, November 2022.
• “Español@s con asterisco. Immigration, Racism, and Identity in 21st Century Spain.” Resilience and Reconstruction through Migration and Revolution in Contemporary Hispanic Cultures. Invited presenter. UVA Center for the Liberal Arts, Charlottesville. October 2022.
• “Aprender español en comunidad: una colaboración entre el Equity Center y el Departamento de Español de la Universidad de Virginia.” 48º Congreso del Movimiento Cooperativo de Educación Popular. Invited presenter. Madrid, Spain. June 2022.
• “Community-Engaged Teaching Showcase.” 10th Annual Innovations in Pedagogy Summit. Co-Presenter with my SPAN 3070 students. May 2022.
• “Multilingual Tutoring to Bridge Educational Inequities. How Integrating Course Content and Support Systems Can Benefit High School Programs and College Students.” 2022 Experiential Commons Scholars Summit: Community-Engaged Pedagogy and Practice. Co-Presenter. Charlottesville. March 2022.
• LAST 2050 (Latin American Studies Interdisciplinary Seminar). Invited presenter. UVA. 2022–to present.
• “Creating Digital Projects: Podcasts, Multimedia Translations, and Annotated Testimonials.” Institute of World Languages Spring Roundtable Series. Co-Presenter with Prof. Liz Hall (French). April 2021.
• “International Business Mentorships: A Collaboration between the Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese and the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.” Co-presenter. 5th International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes (ISLSP/ CIBER Business Conference). Charlotte. March 2020.
• “Prácticas pedagógicas contemplativas en la enseñanza de lengua extranjera.” ALDEEU (Association of Spanish Professionals in the USA). Co-presenter. Valencia, Spain. June 2019.
• “Creación y desarrollo de ePortfolios en la clase de L2.” Jornadas Pedagógicas de la Escuela de Español. Middlebury College. Invited presenter. Middlebury, Vermont. July 2018.
• “Getting Real: The Role of e-Portfolios in Business Spanish Courses”. The AAEEBL Southeast Conference: E-portfolio as a High Impact Practice: How Does E-Portfolio Energize Liberal Education? Virginia Tech, November 2016.
• “La literatura maya actual en Guatemala.” Seguir cantando: voces de mujeres e indígenas en nuestras letras. Round Table Series. Spanish School at Middlebury College. Invited presenter, June 2016.
• “Using e-Portfolios in the Second Language Classroom: The UVA Experience.”. MIFLIC Mountain Interstate Foreign Languages Conference. Group Presentation. James Madison University, Harrisonburg. October 2016.

Academic translations

Mahler, Anne Garland. “‘Todos los negros y todos los blancos tomamos café’: raza y desigualdad laboral en Coffea arábiga de Nicolás Guillen-Landrián.” Trans. Esther Poveda Moreno. In Guillén Landrián: por un cine salvaje, eds. Julio Ramos and Dylon Robbins. Leiden, NL: Almenara Press, 2018.

Selected fellowships and grants (last five years)

• 2024 Language Commons Grant. “Workshop on the Teaching of Writing in the Foreign Language Class.” Co-recipient with Liz Hall (French). The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2024–2025.
• 2021-2022 & 2024-2025 Arts & Sciences General Faculty Teaching Support Grant. “Workshop on the Teaching of Writing in the Foreign Language Class.” Co-recipient with Liz Hall (French). The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2021–2022 & 2024–2025.
• Mellon Race, Place, and Equity Program. Grant for SPAN 3070 (‘Sí se puede’: Community Engagement in Spanish-Speaking Charlottesville) & SPAN 3060 (Writing for Social Justice and Change). Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2022–present.
• IWL Course Enhancement and Development Grant. “Developing the Syllabus for the New Version of SPAN 3010 (Finding your Voice in Spanish). An Advanced Writing Course in Spanish Based on the OERLL textbook entitled: La escritura: una manera de estar en el mundo. Genre-Based Writing for Advanced Spanish Students.” The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Summer 2024.
• 2024-2025 Learning Technology Incubator (LTi) Grant. “AI in Second Language Courses.” Group grant. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2024–2025.
• 2024 SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) Dissemination Grant for writing a scholarly article: “Tracking Empathy and Compassion in Community-Based Language Courses: A Case Study”. Center for Teaching Excellence. The University of Virginia. Summer 2024.
• 2023-2023 Learning Technology Incubator (LTi) Grant. “La escritura: una manera de estar en el mundo. Genre-Based Writing for Advanced Spanish Students.” The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2023–2024.
• Open Educational Resources for Language Learning (OERLL) Grant for the OERLL textbook entitled: La escritura: una manera de estar en el mundo. Genre-Based Writing for Advanced Spanish Students.” Institute of World Languages. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2022–2023.
• UVA Arts & Sciences Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion grant for a project entitled: “Diversity, Accessibility, and Equity in Language Classrooms: Piloting Open Educational Resources in Spanish.”  Co-Recipient. 2022.
• IWL Faculty Research Grant: “Tracking expressions of empathy and compassion in community-based language learning courses.” Summer 2022.
• IWL Course Enhancement and Development Grant. “Re-Envisioning SPAN 3010 (Grammar and Composition I) with a Design Approach to Writing Instruction.” The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Summer 2021.
• 2021-2022 Learning Technology Incubator (LTi) Grant. “Exploring OER for Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced Level Spanish Courses.” Co-Recipient. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2021–2022.
• The Civic and Community Engagement Program. Grant for the SPAN 3020 – SPAN 3030 community-based language learning course-sequence. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. 2019–2022.
• IWL Course Enhancement and Development Grant. “Interdisciplinary Connections for SPAN 3040 (Business Spanish).” The University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Co-Recipient. 2019–2020.