Adriana L. Medina  is a first generation American born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents. She lived in Miami all of her life, with the exception of four years when she lived in Nashville, Tennessee, and attended Peabody College for Teachers at Vanderbilt University and received her Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, English. For a large chunk of her teaching career, Adriana taught 7^th and 8^th grade Language Arts. She received her Master’s degree in Reading Education from Florida International University. She then left the middle school classroom to earn a Doctorate in Reading at University of Miami.

     Dr. Medina has experience in school-based educational research. Her most recent program evaluation project of large-scale educational reform initiatives was the Smaller Learning Communities grant through the Miami-Dade County Public Schools District. Prior to that, she directed a 10 million dollar, five-year, federal grant that serviced eight multicultural, urban Professional Development Schools. As part of school-based program evaluation projects, Dr. Medina has also conducted individual and focus group interviews with key school, community, and business stakeholders who work collaboratively to improve student achievement through leadership models funded in part by the Council for Educational Change. Most recently, Dr. Medina completed a program evaluation of a teacher induction program. At the present time, Dr. Medina is conducting an evaluation of alternative teacher education programs at UNC Charlotte and of an educational program sponsored by the YMCA of Greater Charlotte. 

     When Adriana is not doing something with her family (like bike riding) or for her family (like cleaning and laundry), she is hiding in the bathroom trying to get some pleasure reading in, or parked before her computer with her earplugs on trying to compose a poem or some other writing piece, or sitting in her sewing room, colored pencils in hand, designing a quilt to complete.

     Adriana’s research interest is on adolescents who struggle with literacy. She is excited about the opportunities available to her at UNCCharlotte and is eager to get to know her colleagues and her students.

My kids and my mom

My dad and me