Erica serves as residency coach for PEF’s Project Inspire teacher residency program. Project Inspire’s mission is to ensure that all Hamilton County students have access to an effective, committed, and culturally responsive teacher. The residency model, of which Erica was a part as a clinical instructor prior to joining PEF full time, ensures that pre-service teachers receive the highest quality combination of graduate coursework, mentoring, and coaching for a full year before teaching on their own. Erica’s responsibilities with Project Inspire include providing classroom coaching and support for residents, graduates, and clinical instructors, developing and implementing programming centered around teaching and coaching for equity, and ensuring that residents are fully prepared to change the lives of their own students in Hamilton County’s highest needs schools.

Prior to joining the PEF team, Erica was a social studies teacher and instructional coach in Hamilton County. Her passion was and remains preparing students to become fully engaged and active citizens of the world, ready to embrace their individual talents and apply them towards a brighter future. Erica believes that powerful teaching can not only result in academic success, but can also have profound emancipatory results for students and communities.

Erica received her B.A. from Emory University, her M.Ed from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of South Carolina. When she is not immersed in the world of education, Erica enjoys being in or on the water, volunteering at the Brainerd Farmers’ Market, pretending to be a Masterchef contestant, traveling with her wife, Catherine, and spoiling her dog, Princess Lolamain of Barkenburg.