Teaching Experience:

• University Writing Program Lower Division Courses (UWP 001) Instructor, UC Davis (Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025)
• EDU 253: Bilingual Methods Teaching Assistant, UC Davis (March 2023 - June 2023)
• Graduate Student Researcher, Hispanic Serving Institution, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, UC Davis (December 2022 - July 2023)
• Adjunct Professor, Research Seminar, Master's in Language Teaching, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia (February 2021 - May 2022)
• Academic Writing Instructor, Instituto Internacional de Idiomas, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia (October 2017 – May 2022)

Presentations:

• Peñaloza, A. (2025, April 10). Hermanas Escritoras: Autohistoria Mixtapes of Undergraduate Chicana/Latinas in STEM. [Presenter], Conference on College Composition and Communication, Baltimore, Maryland.
• Anderson-Thompson, A. S., Peñaloza, A., Camacho-Gutierrez, C., & Martinez, T. (2024, April 11). The Liberation, Decolonization, and Abolition (LDA) Collective: Testimonios that Collectively Theorize LDA From the Flesh. [Roundtable Presenter], American Education Research Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Peñaloza, A. (2024, April 13). Hermanas Escritoras: Writing Our Autohistorias in First Year Composition University Writing Courses. [Presenter], Conference on College Composition and Communication, Spokane, Washington.
• Peñaloza, A. (2023, December 8). Studies of the self: Re-Claiming our Spirit Through Autoethnography and Autohistoria [Presenter], EdGSA Speaker Series, University of California, Davis.
• Peñaloza, A., Carrola, M., & Caporale, N. (2023, November 3). Promoting Equity in STEM Classrooms: Practicing Culturally Responsive Feminist Pedagogy [Presenter]. American Association of Colleges and Universities, Arlington, Virginia.
• Peñaloza, A. (2023, September 22). Studies of the Self: Claiming our Spirit Through Autoethnography, Autohistoria, and Self-Study [Panelist]. 23rd Teacher’s Moot, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia.
• Peñaloza, A. (2023, September 23). Femtorship and Community-Based Participatory Research: A Feminist Praxis to Research [Panelist]. 23rd Teacher’s Moot, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia.
• Peñaloza, A. & Rallón, A. (2023, September 22). STEAM Up: An Introduction to STEAM Education in Higher Education Language Learning [Presenter]. 23rd Teacher’s Moot, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia.
• Peñaloza, A. & Gonzalez, C. M. (2023, September 23). Student-Parent Experiences in a Graduate Language Teaching Program in Colombia [Presenter]. 23rd Teacher’s Moot, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, Tunja, Colombia.
• Camacho-Gutiérrez, C., Martinez, I., & Peñaloza, A. (2023). Portraits of the Self: Pláticas on art as an act of self-preservation, radical healing, and love [Presenter]. Politics of Care, El Centro, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Why did you choose the DE in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies?

I started writing in order to survive, but I became a writer to tell my story. I am a first-generation U.S.-born Colombiana. Growing up, I always heard my mother say she was a bad writer, and one of the reasons she thought this was because of the negative comments she received in her first-year composition course. When I entered college, I started to internalize that I was a bad writer, too. I experienced the conflict between the writer I wanted to be and the writer I was supposed to be in academia. Later on, as a language and research educator in Colombia, I experienced my students saying the same thing about themselves. What is it about college writing that can feel so isolating and uninviting, especially for multilingual writers in academia?

As I share with my students, writing was never a path I deliberately chose. It chose me, and it keeps choosing me over and over again to fight for our right to express ourselves. In the WRaCS DE, I have found a community of scholars and peers who have listened to and uplifted my story and those I carry with me. I have been invited to spaces where decisions are made and curriculum is transformed in the community. I have also found other amazing people who are advocating for and pushing back against the systems that oppress multilingual writers. My experience in the WRaCS DE has helped me grow as a person and educator to write/right the wrongs that students experience in college writing courses.