Rachel Toncelli

Rachel Toncelli explores how educators navigate AI while keeping human connection at teaching's heart. A longtime teacher of multilingual students and teacher educator, she now collaborates on faculty development at CATLR. Rachel earned her masters in Anthropology at the Università degli studi di Firenze, her M.Ed. in TESOL at Rhode Island College, and her doctorate in Curriculum, Teaching, Learning, and Leadership at Northeastern University. Her dissertation examined how storytelling in teacher education expands asset-based perspectives of cultural and linguistic diversity. For her, good teaching centers meaningful relationships and collaboration. Her journey from teaching multilingual students to AI-related research reflects an ongoing commitment to wrestling with complex questions alongside fellow educators. Rachel approaches AI's challenges with curiosity and humility, knowing that we're all learning how to teach authentically with these new tools together. Off campus, she creates community the Italian way—around a table full of homemade food and good conversation.