Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Karina completed her Bachelor’s in International Relations from el Tecnológico de Monterrey. After moving to Texas, she became an Elementary Bilingual teacher through an alternative certification program. She completed her Master’s in Bilingual Education and School Principalship at the University of Texas Pan American in 2005. She later became a Bilingual/ESL Strategist, Newcomer Academy Coordinator, Middle School Assistant Principal, and Bilingual/ESL Director in McAllen ISD for almost 6 years.

Karina received the Public Education Honoree Award by the Texas Association for Bilingual Education in 2016, recognizing her role in the transformation of her district’s transitional bilingual program into a dual language program in 20 elementary campuses.

Karina has served in both the RGV-TABE and TABE executive boards playing several roles, including RGV-TABE’s secretary, parliamentarian, and president, as well as TABE’s secretary, legislative chair, Bilingual/ESL representative, and newsletter chair. Karina has served as the Language Proficiency, Biliteracy and Cultural Diversity Director in Region One ESC for the past six and a half years, where she has had the pleasure of working for more than 160,000 Emergent Bilingual students and their families in the south Texas border. She has also served as an adjunct professor of Testing and Measurement, Language Acquisition, and Applied Linguistics for future bilingual teachers at the Texas A&M University in Kingsville.

Karina delivered her first TEDxMcAllen talk in November of 2019 entitled “The Revolutionary Power of Bilingualism”.