Vivian Yenika-Agbaw is Professor of Education (Literature & Literacy) at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, where she teaches children’s and adolescent literature both residentially and online. Her research explores equity issues with a particular focus on the representation of populations (race/class/gender/disability) that have been historically marginalized and underrepresented in youth texts. She is productive in the area of the K-12 multicultural literature seeking to enhance teachers’ understanding of the cultural experiences children bring into their classrooms, and recognizing their different ways of knowing. A co-editor of the Journal of Children’s Literature (2019-2022), she is the author of Representing Africa in Children’s Books: Old and New Ways of Seeing and co-editor of “’A Silence Full of Sound’: Children and Deaf Culture in Children’s Literature and Other Modes of Representations (forthcoming at the University Press of Mississippi). A past elected board member of the International Research Society of Children’s Literature (IRSCL: 2017-2019), she is currently the chair of the Equity and Diversity Committee of the IRSCL.

Photo: Patrick Mansell