David A. Wilson, PhD

David A. Wilson was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, grew up in central Missouri, and then moved back to New Mexico as an adult. He has remained in New Mexico ever since. He abandoned a degree in music performance as a classically trained percussionist, receiving instead a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan. An abiding interest in cognitive development in children led him to teach preschool for two years in Boston. Later, his interests in Anthropology, music, and language led him to Côte d’Ivoire, where he served as a French-English translator and interpreter on a rural development project in the central part of the country. Upon returning to the U.S., Dr. Wilson founded Le Groupe Français d’Albuquerque, an organization created to provide informal spoken language opportunities for native and second-language speakers of French. After receiving his M.A. in Elementary Education from the University of New Mexico, he taught various combinations of elementary grades for 36 years in the Albuquerque Public Schools. He was the co-founder of the dual-language program at Zia Elementary, where he taught all curricular areas in Spanish and in English in a 3rd, 4th, and 5th-grade self-contained classroom. Since receiving his doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies, Dr. Wilson has been a Lecturer III in the department, teaching various courses in TESOL, ESL, and Bilingual Education. In May 2024, Dr. Wilson founded Language Goes to School, a podcast about multilingual education in New Mexico and beyond.