Motoko Akiba

Motoko Akiba is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri–Columbia. She received a BA in education from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, a Ph.D. in educational theory and policy, and a dual-title Ph.D. in comparative and international education from Pennsylvania State University–University Park. Before joining MU, she was a senior researcher at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). She conducts policy research on teacher quality and learning, multicultural teacher education, and school safety using both U.S. and international data. Specifically, she takes a comparative and international approach to examining teacher policy issues that influence student learning and behavior. She received the Isabelle Lyda Professorship for outstanding research accomplishment in 2005, Outstanding Reviewer Award from the American Educational Research Journal in 2007, and the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2008. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the American Educational Research Journal (Social and Institutional Analysis) and the American Journal of Education. With the NSF CAREER award grant, she is leading a 5-year project that examines teachers’ work contexts and learning opportunities using longitudinal survey and case study methods.