Nela Navarro is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of English at Rutgers University–New Brunswick and serves as the Director of Education, Associate Director, and member of the CGHR UNESCO Executive Committee at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights (CGHR). She also serves as the Director of Cross-Border Initiatives and Academic Wellness Ambassador for the Star Scholars Network.
Her research interests include writing studies, language and social justice, linguistic discrimination, linguicide, language rights, new literacies studies, critical language awareness, critical pedagogy, and arts across the curriculum, educational reform, comparative global education, human rights, genocide, and peace education.
A recipient of the Rutgers University Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (2021), she regularly contributes to rights-based curriculum and professional development initiatives. She is an editor for the Rutgers University Press book series Genocide, Human Rights, and Political Violence; the translator of Towards a Just Society: The Personal Journeys of Human Rights Educators (University of Minnesota, 2015); author of Translingual Identities and Transnational Realities in the College Classroom (Routledge, 2020); and a co-contributor to Advancing Socially Driven Scholarship: The STAR Scholar Certified Researcher Training Program (Star Scholars Press, 2023).