Sara Castro Cantú (she/her/ella)

I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where I am pursuing my doctoral degree in Hispanic Linguistics.

I was born and raised in Mexico City. After my family moved to Los Angeles in 2010, I attended a California community college and later obtained my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at California State University, Long Beach (#GoBeach!)

I am currently working on my dissertation, which explores language maintenance of Spanish in the U.S. across sociolinguistic generations. In addition to my research and teaching interests, I am passionate about educational equity and student affairs. During my time as an undergraduate and graduate student at Cal State Long Beach, I worked as a writing tutor, peer mentor, board member, student assistant, and peer advisor. In my role as Coordinator, I advised diverse student groups in their pursuit of graduate education. I now bring these experiences to UIUC in my work as a teacher, researcher, and mentor.

In my free time, I enjoy visiting national parks, traveling the world via Google Earth, and watching old-timey movies.

You can learn about my research here.

You can learn more about my teaching here.