PROFILE

Cheryl Jones-Walker, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for School and System Redesign at the Learning Policy Institute. Cheryl has worked as a K–12 teacher, teacher educator, school change facilitator, higher education leader, and qualitative researcher in a variety of settings.

Before joining LPI, Jones-Walker was a professor and associate dean at the University of San Francisco (USF) School of Education. At USF School of Education, she led community partnerships including the College Access Center, the San Francisco Teacher Residency Program, and partnerships with regional community colleges to host counseling and teacher credentialing programs. Prior to USF, she was an associate professor at Swarthmore College and a principal investigator of the Blueprint grant from the Office of Minority Heath.

Earlier in her career, Jones-Walker taught in New York, Massachusetts, and Gabon, Central Africa. She also directed the Pilot School Network at the Center for Collaborative Education in Boston, where she worked with teacher leaders, school principals, and district officials to design structures and practices that would foster engaging learning environments for student success.

She has authored Identity Work in the Classroom: Successful Learning in Urban Schools (Teachers College Press) and a chapter in Transforming the Academy: Faculty Perspectives on Diversity & Pedagogy (Rutgers University Press).

Jones-Walker holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. in psychology and African American studies from Wesleyan University.