Erik Byker

Activist, Care taker, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, World traveler

Erik Jon Byker, Ph.D., is a full professor in the Cato College of Education and Honors College at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. During the 2019-20 academic year, he was UNC Charlotte’s resident director at Kingston University in London, UK. Erik has a Ph.D. Degree in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University and holds a M.Ed. Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Virginia. His fields of specialization include curriculum foundations, educational technology integration, global citizenship education, global networked learning, and social studies. Erik’s research agenda is comparative and international in scope as he has conducted ethnographic field studies in Cuba, England, Germany, India, South Africa, South Korea, and across the United States. Erik leads study abroad programs to South Africa and the United Kingdom and a virtual exchange program in Germany. Erik is the founder of the TedxCraverRoad Countdown, which is examines the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and discusses ways to take action on climate change in relation to raising awareness about the SDGs.

Critical Cosmopolitan Theory, global citizenship, global education, Sustainable Development Goals