Alma Flor Ada

Conference Director

Bev­erly Vaughn Hock, Ed.D.
Direc­tor, Read­ing the World Conference

Dr. Hock is an edu­ca­tor and an adjunct fac­ulty mem­ber at the Uni­ver­sity of San Fran­cisco in the Inter­na­tional and Mul­ti­cul­tural Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment. She has also taught courses in children’s lit­er­a­ture, early lit­er­acy, and sto­ry­telling at Cañada Col­lege, Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, East Bay, Domini­can Uni­ver­sity and Notre Dame de Namur University.

Dr. Hock holds a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence Degree in Eng­lish and His­tory in Sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son, a Mas­ter of Sci­ence Degree in Cur­ricu­lum with a spe­cialty in Children’s Lit­er­a­ture from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, East Bay, where she was named “Out­stand­ing Grad­u­ate Stu­dent in Children’s Lit­er­a­ture,” and a Doc­tor of Edu­ca­tion Degree in Inter­na­tional and Mul­ti­cul­tural Edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­sity of San Francisco.

Dr. Hock served as Artist in Res­i­dence for San Fran­cisco State University’s Safe Start Pro­gram, work­ing with teach­ers and preschool­ers. She has taught courses for librar­i­ans and teach­ers at the San Mateo County Office of Edu­ca­tion and has given numer­ous work­shops for the Cal­i­for­nia Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, the Inter­na­tional Read­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, KQED, and other orga­ni­za­tions. She has reviewed books for Linworth’s Library Media Con­nec­tion, and was a con­trib­u­tor to The Oxford Ency­clo­pe­dia of Children’s Literature.

Dur­ing the sum­mer she leads children’s lit­er­a­ture study tours, meet­ing with inter­na­tional authors, illus­tra­tors, and pub­lish­ers, vis­it­ing such coun­tries as Aus­tralia, Aus­tria, Den­mark, Egypt, Fin­land, France, Ger­many, Greece, Hun­gary, Ice­land, Ire­land, Italy, Nor­way, Poland, Rus­sia, Spain, Swe­den, Switzer­land, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

The North­ern Cal­i­for­nia Children?s Book­sellers Asso­ci­a­tion hon­ored her with the Otter Award, which is given to an indi­vid­ual who has done an excep­tional job of bring­ing books and chil­dren together. She was named as one of the “Out­stand­ing Women of San Fran­cisco” by the Iris Cen­ter, “Women Cross­ing All Barriers.”

Cur­rently she serves on the Board of the United States Board on Books for Young Peo­ple, the national branch of the Inter­na­tional Board on Books for Young People.