Mollie Blackburn, Ph.D.

Mollie Blackburn is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on literacy, language, and social change, with particular attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and the teachers who serve them. She is the author of the forthcoming Moving across Differences: How Students Engage LGBTQ+ themes in a High-school Literature Class and Interrupting Hate: Homophobia in Schools and what Literacy can do about it, the editor of Adventurous Thinking: Students’ Rights to Read and Write, a co-author of Stepping Up!: Teachers Advocating for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Schools, and a co-editor of Queer and Trans Perspectives on Teaching LGBT-themed Texts in Schools, Acting Out!: Combating Homophobia through Teacher Activism, and Literacy Research for Political Action and Social Change. She has received NCTE’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy and Leadership Award; WILLA’s Inglis Award for work in gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and young people; AERA’s Queer Studies Special Interest Group’s Body of Work Award; and the Alan C. Purves Award for an article in the Research in the Teaching of English deemed rich with implications for classroom practice. She has also been recognized with The Ohio State University’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.