Gloriana González, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and College of Education Distinguished Scholar in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico, a M.S. in Mathematics Education from Cornell University, and her doctorate from the University of Michigan.  She has prior experience teaching middle school and high school mathematics in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico.  She taught pretty much everything from seventh grade mathematics to AP Calculus, but always asked to teach Geometry, because she loves to solve geometry problems and seek connections with art.  Her research focuses on investigating how teachers manage students’ prior knowledge in problem-based instruction.  She is the Principal Investigator of a project funded by the National Science Foundation, CAREER: Noticing and Using Students’ Prior Knowledge in Problem-based Instruction.  The project aims at developing a professional development model integrating Lesson Study, video clubs, and discussions of animated vignettes to support teacher attention to student thinking.  Methodologically, she uses tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyze the content of classroom talk and conversations among teachers.  She received the 2015 Emerging Scholar Award from the North American Systemic Functional Linguistics Association.  Learning with and from teachers about ways to make mathematics interesting and relevant to all students motivates her to pursue research in mathematics education.