Meet the Staff

Dr. Erika Hunt brings experience in state policy and project management as a former staff member for Governor Jim Edgar. She serves on several state task forces and has served on the Governor’s P-20 Council since 2009 as co-chair of P-20 Council Committee on Teacher and Leadership Effectiveness, which has worked on initiatives around building a diverse educator pipeline, teacher and principal preparation accountability measures, and teacher leadership. Hunt currently directs three federal school leadership grants totaling over $20 M. She also directed a $6 million Wallace Foundation school leadership grant that resulted in key state policy changes, including redesign of all principal preparation programs under new program requirements. This work was recognized by the Education Commission of the States as the recipient of the 2014 Frank Newman Award for State Innovation. A book co-authored by Hunt and published by Routledge in April 2019, Reforming Principal Preparation at the State Level: Perspectives on Policy Reform from Illinois, documents the work. Hunt is also a small business owner of an early childhood center in Bloomington, Illinois, which has grounded her policy and research with practical application.