For nearly two decades, I was a reading researcher and university professor. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Johns Hopkins University.  After teaching in California with Teach For America, I earned a PhD in Reading Education and a Masters in English Education from the University of Virginia.  In 2006, I served as director of the University of Virginia’s McGuffey Reading Center.  I am a prolific researcher and writer; I have written four books and numerous articles in top-tiered educational journals.  I hold over twenty years of teaching and clinical reading experience. In 2019, I created the End Book Deserts podcast, and in 2022 created the Coalition for Literacy Equity.

​I hold advisory roles in the following literacy organizations:

• Board of Directors, International Literacy Association.

• Elementary Advisory Board Member, Penguin Random House

• Ambassador, Freadom USA

• Staff, The Windward Institute