Johanna Tigert, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where she helps prepare pre-service teachers to meet the needs of linguistically and culturally diverse learners in grades K-12. Johanna completed her doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Social Inquiry at the University of Maryland, where her dissertation focused on young Finnish heritage language learners’ language and literacy socialization in homes and a heritage language school. Johanna has been involved in Finnish as a heritage language education since moving to the United States. She has taught Finnish Americans at heritage language schools serving both children and adults, and is a co-founder and former teacher of the Finnish School of Washington, D.C. Her research spans a wide variety of issues related to language education.

Johanna’s career in education began in her native Finland, where she obtained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Russian Language and Literature. After moving to the United States, she completed a Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at the University of Notre Dame Maryland, and went on to teach ESOL in Maryland public schools for almost a decade. She has also taught adult ESOL at the community college level.