Luis Javier Pentón Herrera, Ph.D., is the 2024 TESOL Teacher of the Year, awarded by the TESOL International Association and National Geographic Learning. He is a Professor (Profesor uczelni, in Polish) at Akademia Ekonomiczno-Humanistyczna w Warszawie, Poland and Co-Editor of Tapestry: A Multimedia Journal for Teachers and English Learners. Further, he is a Fulbright and English Language Specialist with the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he served as the 38th President of Maryland TESOL from 2018 to 2019, and earned the rank of Sergeant while serving in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Two of his professional accolades include the ‘30 Up and Coming Emerging Leaders in TESOL’, awarded by TESOL International Association in 2016, and the J. Estill Alexander Future Leader in Literacy Award, awarded by the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALER) in 2018 when his dissertation was chosen as ALER’s 2018 Outstanding Dissertation of the Year. Dr. Pentón Herrera’s current teaching and research projects are situated at the intersection of identity, emotions, and well-being in language and literacy education, social-emotional learning (SEL), autoethnography and storytelling, refugee education, and language weaponization. His books can be found in University of Michigan Press, Routledge, Springer, Brill/Sense, De Gruyter, TESOL Press, Bucharest University Press, and Rowman & Littlefield. Originally from La Habana, Cuba, Dr. Pentón Herrera enjoys creative writing, playing with his two doggies, Virgo and Maui, and running in his free time. You can connect with Dr. Pentón Herrera on his Instagram: @luisjavierpentonherrera. Read more about this authorRead less about this author