Laura Porter, program coordinator of the SABES ESOL PD Center and an ESOL Instructor at Holyoke Community College's Ludlow Area Adult Learning Center, has been teaching ESOL since her Peace Corps service in El Salvador in the 90s, which led her to pursue a Master's of Arts in Teaching ESOL and Spanish from the School for International Training in Brattleboro. In the subsequent 20 years, she has taught in a variety of settings from community college to community-based organizations, with a particular focus on high-level ESOL, college transitions and workforce development programs, in both in-person and remote instruction contexts, with a particular focus on social justice and DEI themes.

In addition, Laura has developed and provided teacher training to adult educators in the ESOL field for more than 10 years, as well as training public school teachers and content-area community college instructors to address the needs of English learners in their classes. She was a reviewer of the MA English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education (2019) and contributed to the development of the MA Professional Standards for Teachers of Adult Speakers of Other languages published in 2020.