Meet the Illinois Resource Center Team
Director and Specialists
Alicia Coronado joined the IRC in Summer 2026. As a high school educator and program lead in Chicago and the Texas Borderlands, Alicia Coronado’s practice is rooted in supporting students’ bilingualism and biliteracy, designing inclusive and culturally responsive curricula, and integrating community engagement whenever possible.
She brings a deep commitment to equitable education for multilingual communities and a rich background in program leadership—spanning university ESL initiatives, child advocacy supervision, and grant consulting—to her work as a mission-driven leader and project manager.
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Maggie Essig is an Education Specialist at the Illinois Resource Center and a leader in multilingual education who believes great learning happens when educators are given the tools, space, support, and inspiration to try something new. With experience as a teacher, administrator, professional learning designer, and consultant, Maggie brings a systems-level perspective grounded in the day-to-day realities of classrooms and schools. Maggie grew up in a family of teachers, so education has always been part of her story. Her mom was her first and most influential mentor, inspiring her to see teaching not simply as a profession, but as a way to find joy and make a difference in the lives of students and educators. That early influence continues to shape how she approaches her work today. Maggie designs and facilitates professional learning for educators, administrators, schools, and districts focused on innovative practices for Multilingual Learners, curriculum and instruction, and instructional technology. Before joining the Illinois Resource Center, she taught Multilingual Learners and served as an administrator. Her experiences across classrooms, schools, and systems inform her collaborative and practical approach to supporting educators and leaders. She is passionate about creating equitable, innovative, and engaging learning experiences—and about finding the sweet spot where language, learning, technology, and possibility intersect. Maggie proudly holds a B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Instructional Leadership and Elementary Education, and M.A. in Educational Leadership. Her goal is to help educators see new possibilities for their students and leave professional learning with ideas they are excited to put into practice. |
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Olivia Mulcahy has been an educator for over 25 years. As a member of the IRC team, she loves collaborating with fellow teachers and leaders to deepen awareness, capacity, and confidence in serving multilingual communities. Her workshops invite participants to explore, experience, connect, question, reflect, and build—mirroring approaches that help our students thrive. Favorite topics include: inclusive learning environments, culturally and linguistically sustaining curriculum, multilingual ecologies, translanguaging, biliteracy development, and arts integration. Before joining the IRC, Olivia led districtwide efforts to grow and sustain strong dual language bilingual education and other multilingual learner programming at Chicago Public Schools. Olivia’s practice is informed by her Ed.S. in Educational Leadership, M.Ed in Instructional Leadership and Elementary Education, and B.A. in Sociology and Spanish, and is ever-grounded by her years in the classroom teaching humanities to middle schoolers in Chicago’s La Villita neighborhood. Olivia is an Irish-Latina Chicagoan, parent, poet, gardener, and martial artist. |
Michele Yanong is an accomplished, Golden Apple Award-winning multilingual education specialist and instructional leader with over 25 years of experience dedicated to transforming classrooms into dynamic, language-rich learning environments. Bringing content to life through innovative, student-centered practices, she has an extensive background that includes more than 15 years of direct experience in bilingual and multilingual classrooms, as well as teaching graduate-level courses in English Learner (EL) Methodology.
As an Education Specialist with the Illinois Resource Center (IRC), Michele partners with PreK–12 educators, instructional coaches, and leadership teams to design and implement Sheltered, Dual Language, and Co-Taught instructional programs. Her professional development sessions and coaching focus on academic language development, biliteracy strategies, integrated co-teaching models, formative assessment, purposeful technology integration, and culturally responsive curriculum adaptation across math, literacy, and writing.
Outside the educational sphere, Michele lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with her family. When she is not singing, reading, dancing Zumba, or attempting to walk her wonderfully lazy bulldog, you will find her enthusiastically cheering from the sidelines as a proud basketball mom to her tween son.
Grounded in a home enriched by exposure to Filipino culture and the Chavacano language, along with a background in Spanish and Japanese, Michele brings authentic insight and heart to her work. She openly admits she hates quiet copy rooms, loves the buzz of an active classroom, and playfully describes her life’s work as “fairy work”—sprinkling positive multilingual education dust everywhere she goes.
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Rachell Plote (and yes, you read that right—Rachell with two Ls!) believes education is at its best when it honors and expands the full linguistic identity of every student. An education specialist with the Illinois Resource Center since 2018, Rachell’s approach is shaped by her background as an elementary bilingual and dual language teacher and as a PreK–12 district administrator overseeing ESL, Bilingual, Dual Language, and World Language programs. Having guided dual language initiatives from inception to long-term sustainability, she brings a deeply practical, systems-level understanding to her support for educators and leaders through professional learning workshops, webinars, coaching, curriculum and program design, and modeling lessons directly in classrooms. Though she didn’t grow up speaking Spanish, learning the language transformed Rachell’s life and career. Her passion grew directly out of her relationships with bilingual students and families, fueling her drive to advocate for language equity and support early reading and writing in both English and Spanish. She especially enjoys bilingual children’s literature and is continually expanding her collection of translanguaging-based texts. A frequent presenter at state and national conferences—including WIDA, La Cosecha, Multilingual IL, NCTE, the Translanguaging Classroom Institute, and the Dual Language Symposium—Rachell leads engaging sessions on early Spanish literacy development, SLA Standards, oracy, biliteracy lesson design, translanguaging strategies, making cross-linguistic connections in literacy and math, and many others! Rachell holds a B.A. in Elementary Education and Spanish and an M.A. in Educational Leadership. Outside of work, she stays grounded through weightlifting, listening to audiobooks, tackling small home projects and redecorating, and indulging in a little trashy TV. Above all, she loves being a mom, stepmom, wife, tía, sister, and daughter—and is currently working on passing her love of Spanish down to her young son. |
Vanessa began with the IRC as an independent contractor in 2022 and has recently joined the team as a full time Education Specialist in 2023. In 2000, Vanessa began her teaching career and over the years has served as an instructional coach, assistant principal and bilingual director in the Chicago and suburban area.
Vanessa’s experience has been focused on serving multilingual learners at the school and district level. She has a B.A. in Secondary Education in the teaching of Spanish as a World Language from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a M.A. in Educational Leadership & Change Management as well as a M.A. in Dual Language Teacher Leadership from Roosevelt University.
Vanessa draws on her experience as a teacher and administrator to deliver high quality professional development that will empower educators to develop equitable educational experiences for culturally and linguistically diverse populations .
Carly Spina joined the IRC in 2021 and has over two decades of experience in Multilingual Education across various roles throughout her career. Through her work at the Illinois Resource Center, she is deeply passionate about providing relevant and engaging professional learning experiences to educators and leaders across the country, both in-person and virtually.
She is a passionate, high-energy keynote speaker and weaves storytelling, lived experiences as an EL teacher, and practical strategies into her craft. Spina loves delivering hands-on workshops to content teachers, classroom teachers, and multilingual teachers and leaders to support multilingual students. Some of her most requested workshops include supporting newcomers, long-term English Learners, serving higher proficiency MLs, and student engagement strategies. Her first book, Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners, was a 2023 Equity in Excellence Award Winner. Her second book, Igniting Real Change: Equity and Advocacy In Action (June 2025), centers on actional steps for more equitable outcomes for multilingual students and families.
Carly considers all teachers and leaders her teammates, and is deeply committed to collaboration to best support the needs of those we serve. You can catch her at her favorite conferences wearing pink and probably laughing a little too loudly.
With over fifteen years in the field of education, Adelicia is a passionate advocate for multilingual learners and their families. Raised in a Latinx community by an immigrant parent, Adelicia was inspired early in her life to become involved in promoting equity in systemically disadvantaged populations.
Adelicia has earned Masters’ degrees in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Leadership and holds endorsements in English as a Second Language and Special Education. She has served as a home visitor, DEI facilitator, program supervisor/administrator, and taught in PreK, primary, dual language, and special education classrooms. Her strong background in Early Childhood gives her an informed perspective on meeting the needs of our youngest English Learners.
Administrative Team
Since 1992, Nina Baginski has served at the IRC where she is the project coordinator for the free ISBE-sponsored workshops. Nina also administratively supports endorsement courses and other IRC events including the State Bilingual Directors’ meeting, the Multilingual Conference, the ESSA Conference, and the Bilingual Parents Summit. Her skills in the Polish language and culture are invaluable.
Barbara joined the IRC family in 2022. She has over 20 years of experience in the administrative field. Her primary role is to assist with graduate-level ESL/Bilingual endorsement courses.
Rosie joined the IRC family in 2018. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Argosy University. She has over 15 years of experience in the administrative field.
Her primary role is to assist with graduate-level ESL/Bilingual endorsement courses. In addition, Rosario provides assistance for various IRC events and workshops including the State Bilingual Directors’ meeting, the Illinois Bilingual Conference, the ESSA Conference, and the Bilingual Parents Summit.
Lynn Osheff became project manager of the Illinois Resource Center in 2017 after working on various projects at The Center for 15 years. Previously, she taught ESL at community colleges, coordinated faculty governance at Northeastern Illinois University, and worked in the business world. Lynn holds an M. A. in Linguistics and B. A. in Foreign Language from Northeastern Illinois University.
Louisa Finnberg (a.k.a. Luigi) has been at the IRC since 1978 and is responsible for production and editing of brochures and programs for various IRC services, courses, and events.
In particular, Louisa is a key contact person for the different conferences organized by the IRC including the State Multilingual Conference, the ESSA Conference, and the Bilingual Parent Summit.
Lindsay Eanet has been managing the IRC’s marketing and communications since 2021. Prior to joining the IRC family, she served as Executive Director at the Northcenter Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest small business organizations in Chicago.
In addition to her work at the IRC, she is a freelance writer & reporter whose work has appeared in Block Club Chicago, The Chicago Reader, the Washington Post and other publications.
Belinda is the newest addition as the administrative assistant at The Illinois Resource Center, she will be assisting staff members with conferences and utilizing her bilingual skills to help out in the field. She is a recent graduate of National Louis University specializing in Behavioral Science.
She has over ten years experience as an administrative assistant. She enjoys assisting others, problem solving and working as a team. She is a proud Alumna of the Americorps City Year New Hampshire Chapter. She enjoys volunteering at different events every few years. She is eager to learn more about bilingual and multilingual aspects the Illinois Resource Center has to offer.
