Professor  Jara is a senior lecturer of Spanish in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and the Spanish Lower Division Coordinator.
She has been at UNCW since 2004. She is a native of Costa Rica. She completed her undergraduate studies in Political Science and International Relations at Louisiana State University as a Fulbright scholar.  She received two M.A. degrees in Liberal Arts in the areas of Hispanic Studies and Spanish.  Profe Jara teaches courses in elementary and intermediate Spanish. 
In 2014, she was recognized with The Lecturer of the Year Award for excellence in teaching and service. 

She plays a vital role in the implementation and promotion of study abroad programs at UNCW.  She has directed and co-directed thirteen study abroad programs, several of which she solely created.  She also served as the director of the North Carolina Consortium Semester Program in Spain during the fall semester 2016. 
She has been an academic advisor for University College and has collaborated teaching courses in other departments such as Watson School of Education and the Honors College.
In addition, Ms. Jara was the Spanish Club Advisor for twelve consecutive years and regularly supports the local Hispanic community through community service and by encouraging students to help through different organizations. Profe Jara has taught online since 2010 when she became pregnant with her only daughter. Since then, she became passionate about teaching online and has consecutively taught online and attended many workshops and seminar to improve every year. During the Covid pandemic she served as a faculty advisor to help colleagues in the College of Arts and Science make the transition from face-to-face to online teaching.  She has taught all online modalities (asynchronous, synchronous and hybrid). 
Profe Jara's goal is to continue learning and delivering the best kind of online education and experience to her students.