Marilena Draganescu

Ms. Draganescu is a native of Romania, where she receieved her B.A. from the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Philology. In 2001 she graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a second M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). After graduation, she returned to her home country temporarily and took up employment with the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest for four years, where she taught a variety of Business English classes. In 2006, she started her Ph.D. in the Language, Literacy, and Culture Program at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Before joining MEI in 2010, she worked for four years as an English instructor at the English Language Center at UMBC where she taught advanced reading and writing classes.