Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan

Author and the Director of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Center at San Diego State University. She is also the Co-Executive Director of The Asian American Education

Dr. Loh-Hagan was a K-8 classroom teacher, community college reading instructor, and program chair for an online university. She has served as a faculty member in SDSU’s College of Education where she directed the Liberal Studies program, coordinated several international travel abroad programs, led teaching credential programs, coordinated clinical practice and EdTPA efforts, and taught various courses in education and literacy.

She is the 2016 recipient of California Reading Association’s Marcus Foster Memorial Award for outstanding achievement in reading. She has a B.A. in English and a Masters in Elementary Education (K-8) and Special Education, specializing in Learning Disabilities (K-12), from the University of Virginia. Upon graduation, she received the "Outstanding Woman Scholar in Education" award. She earned her Doctorate in Education with an emphasis in Literacy from SDSU-USD in May 2008; her dissertation—for which she received a ChLA Beiter Graduate Student Research Grant award from the Children’s Literature Association and for which she has published peer-reviewed articles and conducted presentations—was a qualitative study on the cultural authenticity of Asian-American children's literature.

She has authored over 350 children's books and has several academic publications about using multicultural children and young adult literature. Most of her books and research address APIDA themes. She is serving on various book award committees and is the Cover Editor and Book Nook columnist for "The California Reader," the premiere professional journal for the California Reading Association. She is committed to ensuring APIDA histories and narratives are taught in K-12 and beyond. Her newest books are A is for Asian American (Sleeping Bear Press, 2022) and Born Reading: 20 Stories of Women Reading Their Way Into History (Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster, 2023).