Worked as an Army Civilian for 12+ years at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, the biggest foreign language teaching and learning institution in the world. During this time she distinguished herself for her exceptional leadership and innate desire to serve, receiving numerous Commandant’s and Provost’s coins of excellence as well recognition from different government agencies. During her career as an educator she was exposed to new dimensions of language training, language curriculum design, and language proficiency assessments. She deeply understands the challenges faced by non target language speakers and by those who are considered Heritage Speakers.  In her earlier years at the institute, as an Assistant Professor she lead several teams of instructors, contributed to the modernization of curricula and coached a great amount of educators. After a few years, she was promoted to Associate Professor and became the Director of the San Antonio, TX Language Training Detachment.  During her time as Director, she guided a multidisciplinary team with remarkable results and a great impact on the language-preparedness of students to perform their mission.

Understanding the modern world and the importance of languages in both the private and public sectors, she decides to found Semper Lingua with the purpose of participating in the education of new generations, contributing to a better prepared government workforce, helping businesses to grow and expand to new markets, and continuing to serve the country by generating jobs. Semper Lingua then becomes a part of the country’s productive system that nurtures the economy.

Selene has been an Adjunct Professor at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, the oldest Catholic University in Texas and the Southwest. She has been a consultant for several companies and among many responsibilities she has created lessons for GLOSS, an online platform meant to empower autonomy of government employees, the military and the public in general; GLOSS is published on DLIFLC’s webpage. She has also created online curriculum for Special Forces and evaluated linguistic abilities of hundreds of candidates who require to show proficiency to retain or apply to several positions in the US government, hospitals, law enforcement, companies and state governments.

Selene has been a presenter at many conferences and universities, among many, Georgetown University, Air University and the Air Force Culture and Language Center – Annual Air University Language, Regional Expertise and Culture Symposium and LEARN conferences, sponsored by the Foreign Language Program Office of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Cryptologic School.

Selene is a mother, a spouse, a daughter and a grandmother of 3 beautiful boys who are already learning the beauty of learning languages.