María Eugenia Zelaya

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, María Eugenia Zelaya is a first-generation immigrant in the United States. She has been teaching Spanish at Eastside High School since 2008 (both in the International Baccalaureate (IB) and regular program) She is also the CAS Coordinators for the IB program at her school. Mrs. Zelaya received a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Florida in 2000, and two Master of Arts degrees from the University of Florida (Latin American Studies 2002 and Political Science 2006). She took part in the 2015-2016 Teachers for Global Classroom Program and participated in the International Field Experience in Colombia. In her classroom, she provides her students with opportunities to understand others perspectives through video conferences with classrooms in Latin America (Colombia and Ecuador). She participated in the 2017-2018 Peace Teacher Program of the United States Institute of Peace. She was selected as the 2018-2019 Teacher of the Year for Eastside High School and as one of the three finalists for the 2019 Teacher of the Year for Alachua County. In the summer of 2019, she participated with 70 educators from Europe, Israel and the United States in Centropa Summer Academy in Berlin, Germany where she learned about 20th Century history, the Holocaust and Civil Society in The Global Classroom. In the school year 2021-2022, she is one of the participants in the Educators-in-Residence program with the University of Florida’s Center for European Studies. She participated in the Fulbright-Hays Seminar in Hungary during the summer of 2022. In the Spring 2024, she was selected as Curriculum Support Specialist and Program Participant in the 9th annual K-12 Curriculum Development Program in San Juan, Puerto Rico organized by University of Michigan and Universidad de Puerto Rico and in the summer of 2024, she was one of the program participants for NEH Summer Institute, Somos Boricuas: Understanding Puerto Rican Migration and Community Building through the Arts and Humanities Besides her teaching job, she is also the executive director of Children Beyond Our Borders, a non-profit organization based in Gainesville, Florida whose mission is to improve the quality of life and provide sustainable access to education for vulnerable students in the US and Latin America.