Dr. María Estela Brisk's specialties are bilingual education, bilingualism and literacy development, particularly writing development and instruction. She is the author of four books including, Engaging Students in Academic Literacies: Genre-based Pedagogy for K-5 Classrooms (New York: Routledge, 2015); Language, Culture, and Community in Teacher Education (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates) and Bilingual Education: From Compensatory to Quality Schooling (Second Edition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). She is also the co-author of three books: Literacy and Bilingualism: A Handbook for All Teachers (Second Edition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates); Language Development and Education: Children with Varying Language Experiences (Palgrave MacMillan); and Situational Context of Education: A Window into the World of Bilingual Learners (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Brisk served as Chair of the TESpECI Department from 2007–2012. In 2016, she received the won the AERA Bilingual Research SIG Lifetime Achievement Award and was appointed chair of the 2018 International System Functional Congress. Brisk has been a translator, Spanish instructor for the U.S. Peace Corps, and even served as an expert witness on several court cases on desegregation and bilingual education. She was a long-standing member of the Board of Editors for the Bilingual Research Journal.