María Rosa Brea
Clinical Associate Professor; Director, Bilingual Extension Program
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
212-998-5593
María Rosa Brea, Ph.D., CCC-SLP (ella, she, her/s), is a Clinical Associate Professor and the Director of the Bilingual Extension Program in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders. Dr. Brea joined NYU Steinhardt in Fall 2017. She graduated with an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Cognitive Neural Sciences and a minor in Language Science from the University of South Florida’s Department of Psychology. Prior to obtaining her doctorate, she practiced as a bilingual, certified Speech-Language Therapist in school-based settings and was employed as a Clinical Instructor responsible for training and supervising graduate students with varying levels of expertise.
Dr. Brea is a Dominican, immigrant, bilingual (Español and English) speaker, a critical teacher-scholar-activist whose work has been centered at the intersection of multilingualism and disability. She teaches about and implements culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogical practices in her courses, as these are aligned with her overarching commitments to critical inquiry, reflexive praxis, and the redistribution of power in classroom spaces, in a way that remains representative of her students’ brilliant voices. Her classroom and community collaborations focus on researching the impact of standardized linguistic ideologies in speech-language practices, sustaining variability in languaging in the classroom, and co-envisioning a path for linguistic liberation.
Her dedication to student-centered teaching, social justice activism, and community engagement have received multiple accolades. In 2015, Dr. Brea was selected for the University of South Florida's Provost Community Engaged Faculty Award. In 2020, she received the prestigious NYU Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award. She is also the recipient of the 2021 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)'s Certificate of Recognition for Special Contributions in Multicultural Affairs.
Selected Publications
- Nair, V.K.K., & Brea-Spahn, M.R. (2021). Reimagining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Medium. Retrieved from https://vishinair.medium.com/reimagining-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-in-communication-sciences-and-disorders-6bb12cb28ced
- Brea-Spahn, M.R. (2021; January). BLLING: Learning as belonging. ASHA Leader. Retrieved from https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/leader.AE.26012021.36/full/.
- Brea-Spahn, M.R. (2020). A time of reckoning, a call for change. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/a-time-of-reckoning-a-call-for-change-915de791118f.
- Dunn Davidson, M. D., & Brea-Spahn, M.R. (in press). Literacy in two languages. In B. Goldstein and B. Conboy (Eds.), Bilingual language developments and disorders in Spanish-English speakers (3rd Ed.). Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.
- Brea-Spahn, M. R., Frisch, S., & Bryant, J. (2020). Wordlikeness and nonword repetition in Spanish-speaking bilingual children. In Li Fangfang, K. Pollock, & R. Gibb, (Eds.), Research in child second language acquisition: Towards an integrated understanding. Amsterdam: John Benjamin Publishing.
- Brea-Spahn, M.R. (2014). Bilingual Children with Language Learning Disabilities: Convergence in Conceptual, Linguistic, and Cultural Circles of Knowledge. In C. A. Stone, E. R. Silliman, B. J. Ehren, & K. Apel (Eds.), Handbook of language and literacy: Development and disorders (pp. 359-378). (2nd Ed). New York, NY: Guilford.