Academics

Dawn Abt-Perkins > Biographical Sketch

Dawn Abt-Perkins earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a curricular emphasis in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after completing several years as a high school English and journalism teacher in both private and public high schools.  While she was an English teacher, she won the Dow Jones Fellowship for best high school newspaper advisor and studied at the journalism school at Northwestern University.  After completing her coursework for her doctorate, she was awarded the prestigious Barr Fellowship to fund her dissertation work.  She has earned several national awards for her scholarship while teaching at Lake Forest College, the prize for best research contribution for the self-study special interest group of the American Educational Research Association and the Meade Award for most significant contribution to the study of English language arts from the National Council of Teachers of English.  Professor Abt-Perkins has also held nationally elected positions on the board of the National Council of Teachers of English where she was involved in educational policy in the areas of teacher education and literacy education.