Riley Drake is an assistant professor of school counseling in the Department of Counseling, Rehabilitation, and Human Services at the University of Wisconsin-Stout School of Education. Riley’s vision for educational justice is grounded in education as the practice of freedom, and her research, including her dissertation, The Purpose Is Process: Exploring Humanizing Social Emotional Praxes in Elementary Education, explores how educators honor and struggle for liberation alongside young people, families and community organizers. Specifically, she is interested in the praxes of elementary school counselors who center young people, prioritizing those most intimately familiar with structural violence in and by schooling, and their freedom to feel and be expansively in relationship with one another in collaboration with community-led movements for justice.
Riley is a former elementary school counselor, during which time she initiated and co-led grassroots organizing in her school community. She remains committed to justice movements in interconnectedness with educators (particularly school counselors), students, families and community organizers to disrupt white supremacy and cultivate possibilities for liberation in PK-12 schools, counselor education programs, and local communities.
Riley holds a B.S. in psychology from Truman State University, an M.S. in counseling from Drake University, an M.Ed. in educational leadership from Iowa State University, and Ph.D. in social and cultural studies of education from Iowa State University.
