Lilian G. Katz is an international leader in early childhood education. After earning her PhD from Stanford University, she taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for more than three decades. Katz also directed the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education for more than 30 years. She has lectured in all 50 U.S. states and in 43 countries, and she has held visiting posts at universities in Australia, Canada, England, Germany, India, Israel, the West Indies (Barbados campus), and many parts of the United States. In 1997, she served as Nehru Professor at the University of Baroda in India.

She also was one of the founders of the Illinois Association for the Education of Young Children and served as its first president. In addition, she served as vice president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) from 1986 to 1990 and later was elected president of NAEYC, serving from 1992-1994.

Katz has authored more than 150 publications, including articles, chapters, and books about early childhood education, teacher education, child development, and parenting. She wrote a monthly column for several years for Parents Magazine on parenting 3- and 4-year-olds. She founded two journals: Early Childhood Research Quarterly and Early Childhood Research & Practice (http://ecrp.uiuc.edu), which began publication in early 1999 as the first peer-reviewed, Internet-only, journal in early education, and became fully bilingual.

Katz is Professor Emerita, elementary and early childhood education, University of Illinois, where she serves on the staff of the Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting. Her book titled Intellectual Emergencies was published by Kaplan Press, a division of Kaplan Early Learning Company.