Riana grew up in Northfield, MN and first learned Spanish as a Rotary Exchange Student in Los Andes, Chile where she lived for a year in high school. Riana studied Sociology/ Anthropology with a minor in Latin American Studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. During her undergraduate education she studied abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she learned to speak Portuguese. Riana has worked in numerous educational capacities in the metro area including at the Concordia Language Villages, as a bilingual preschool teacher and a teacher's assistant at a bilingual elementary school in Minneapolis. She also served in the U.S Peace Corps in Nicaragua as an Environmental Education Promoter, an assignment which included; planting trees, teaching science in rural schools, making smokeless stoves, and reading books with students in the shade! Riana's education passions are in the areas of social and environmental justice. Her interests include healthy cooking, biking, reading, and being with friends and family. Riana has a Masters in Teaching from Hamline University in St. Paul.