Lisa D. Aker is a literacy faculty member in the School of Teacher Education at Radford
University. Lisa teaches face-to-face pre-service undergraduate courses and online
graduate courses in the Master of Science in Literacy Education program. She is a
former elementary classroom teacher, reading specialist, and literacy coach. She received
her Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Aker’s research focuses on professional learning, literacy coaching, and early literacy.
Before joining the Radford University faculty, Lisa was a faculty member at Clemson
University, where she began her current work investigating how in-service teachers
enrolled in the online Literacy M.Ed. program use nonviolent communication in their
literacy coaching practicums and the impact of cycles of professional learning across
the undergraduate literacy courses in early childhood education programs.
Her work has been published in The Reading Teacher, Reading in Virginia, Effective Practices in Online Teacher Preparation for Literacy Educators, Social Studies and the Young Learner, and Best Practices for Literacy Leaders Key to School Improvement: 2nd Edition. Aker is also the co-editor of Literacy Matters: The Journal of the Palmetto State Literacy Association.