Erika Kitzmiller is the author of The Roots of Educational Inequality: Philadelphia’s Germantown High School, 1907-2014 (Penn Press, 2022) and Unchartered: Reimagining the American High School (forthcoming, Harvard Education Press). Erika’s scholarship examines the historical processes and current practices and policies that contribute to inequality today. Her writing is rooted in inquiry-driven, practice-based methods to advance educational equity and social justice. She is a non-resident fellow at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center and a research affiliate with Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Her work has been published in Educational Researcher, Harvard Educational Review, Teachers College Record, Dissent, the Hechinger Report, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Reuters, and the Washington Post. She has received funding from Barnard College, Columbia University, Harvard University, the National Academy of Education, the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the University of Pennsylvania. 

She has worked as a public and independent school administrator and teacher and regularly consults with businesses, schools, and non-profits. She has also served on the boards and advisory councils of the Institute for Immigration Concerns, The School at Columbia, Athena Center for Women’s Leadership, and Barnard Center for Research on Women.

She earned a Ph.D. in History, a Ph.D. in Education, Culture, and Society, and a Master's in Public Administration at the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A., magna cum laude, in History and Italian from Wellesley College.