Leadership Team

Samuel Aguirre, Chief Consortium and Policy Officer

Sam has more than 10 years of experience serving multilingual learners as an advocate, teacher, state director, and bilingual education leader. He leads WIDA's work to support and engage state education agencies across the WIDA Consortium.

Timothy Boals, Founder and Senior PI

Tim has been a language educator for more than 30 years. His expertise ranges from curriculum, classroom and language assessment to language policy and practice for multilingual learners.

Grace Li, Chief Assessment Officer

Grace has nearly 20 years of assessment leadership and operational experience from which she lends expertise in consultancy and innovative solutions regarding psychometrics, test design and development, scoring and analytics, and data management and operation.

Jenni Monie De Torres, WIDA Executive Director

Jenni has nearly 30 years of experience in education. She is a visionary leader and passionate advocate for language learning. Jenni specializes in organizational leadership, instructional design, curriculum development, research, family engagement and multilingual education.

Merideth Trahan, Staff Director

Merideth brings more than 30 years of experience in non-profit and higher education program and organizational development to WIDA. Her expertise is in talent development, strategic planning, program evaluation and internal communication.

Dorene Uhrich, Chief Operating Officer

Dorene has more than 15 years of experience in strategic operations, organizational development, and team leadership. She brings expertise in process optimization, systems integration, and cross-functional collaboration.

Meg Van Voorhis, Chief Educator Learning Officer

Meg has more than 15 years of combined experience in dual language instruction, curriculum development and professional learning. She brings expertise in educational technology, instructional design and cross-functional leadership.