Dr. Motoko Akiba is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies. Her areas of research expertise are teacher policy and reform, teacher professional development, and comparative education policy. Dr. Akiba received her B.A. from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and a dual-title Ph.D. in “Educational Theory & Policy” and “Comparative & International Education” from Pennsylvania State University-University Park in 2001. She also worked as a post-doc on a Lesson Study project at Mills College and a senior researcher at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) prior to taking a faculty position. Dr. Akiba joined Florida State University in 2012.

She published a book, Improving Teacher Quality: The U.S. Teaching Force in Global Context (Teachers College Press, 2009) and edited three books: Teacher Reforms Around the World (Emerald Books, 2013), The Global and the Local: Diverse Perspectives in Comparative Education (Sense Publishers, 2016), and International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2018). Her articles appear in journals including Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, Education Policy, Educational Policy Analysis Archives, Teachers College Record, Comparative Education Review, and Compare on teacher policy topics such as professional development, compensation, and performance-related pay, and multicultural teacher education.

Her research program has been funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, and AERA Grant Program. She is also a recipient of the NSF early career award grant.