Welcome our new McNair Research Coordinator! Shelby Serrano joins us in the TRIO McNair Scholars Program as the McNair Research Coordinator. Shelby is an NSU Alum graduating in 2017 with her Bachelor of Music Education. After graduating, Shelby moved to the Black Hills and taught elementary music for one year at Piedmont Valley Elementary School. She then moved to Rapid City and taught middle school choir and general music at South Middle School. Shelby is also a piano teacher. While living in Rapid City, Shelby met her husband, Joseph Serrano, who was stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base. Shelby and Joseph were married in 2021 and have gone through two deployments and one move together. Shortly after that, they moved to Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. While in Virginia, Shelby was a substitute teacher for surrounding districts. In August 2022, Shelby and Joseph welcomed their daughter, Pepper, to their family. Shelby is excited to be back home in Aberdeen and working at her alma mater, NSU. Program Director Dr. Chiara Wang Dr. Wang holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Kansas and brings over two decades of experience in K–16 education. A proud Jayhawk, she is a licensed K–12 educator in both Chinese and English as a New Language, with a longstanding commitment to multilingual pedagogy and student-centered learning. A native of Taipei, Dr. Wang has done extensive research on delimitation across languages and Mandarin tones, and she is passionate about applying her linguistics knowledge to language pedagogy. Her personal connection to Northern State University runs deep—her husband is an NSU alumnus, and her late fatherin-law, a devoted mathematician, was a graduate of Northern State Teachers College and taught in Aberdeen for more than thirty years. Beyond her professional life, Dr. Wang enjoys walking her German Shepherd with her husband, participating in her faith community, singing, playing music, writing, exploring culinary traditions, and preparing for future scholarly and creative endeavors.
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