Kate Lechtenberg earned her PhD in Teaching and Learning from the UI’s Language, Literacy, and Culture program in 2020 and her MA in Library and Information Science from the UI's School of Library and Information Science in 2011. She currently works as an instructional coach at North High School in the Des Moines Public Schools, where she also serves on her local union's antiracist curriculum task force. Kate is passionate about bridging gaps between university research and the research that informs K-12 schools, and her research interests center on critical literacy and anti-oppressive education and curriculum development, critical examinations of teacher identities, children’s and young adult literature, intellectual freedom, and curating texts for classrooms and libraries. She was awarded the Frances Henne Award in 2016 and an AASL Research Grant in 2020 by the American Association of School LIbrarians, and the Iowa Academy of Education's Dissertation Award in 2020. Kate served on AASL’s Standards Implementation Task Force, chaired a task force to revise AASL’s Position Statement on Labeling, and worked as a news intern and blogger for the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.