Dr. Georgia Earnest García is Professor Emerita in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to obtaining her PhD, she was a bilingual education teacher, English teacher, ESL/EFL teacher, Peace Corps volunteer, and social studies teacher. After obtaining her PhD, she held appointments at the Center for the Study of Reading, and served on the RAND Reading Study Group on Skillful Reading and the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Between 2019-2021, she was a member of the WestED Reading Content Team, which updated the 2026 NAEP Reading Framework.

Georgia’s research focuses on the literacy development, instruction, and assessment of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, with much of it on bilingual students. She has published her work in the American Educational Research Journal, Bilingual Research Journal, Journal of Literacy Research, Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, The Elementary School Journal, and The Reading Teacher. Georgia and Kay Stahl recently published two books (2015, 2022) on elementary children’s reading comprehension instruction. Georgia currently has another book in press on bilingual students’ literacy instruction (grades K-6). Although retired, she continues to collaborate with bilingual teachers and schools, and conduct and publish research on the literacy development, instruction, and assessment of bilingual students.