Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, Ph.D., is the president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), a role she assumed in January 2025. Prior to AACTE, she served for over eight years as dean of the School of Education at American University (AU), where she transformed the school into a stand-alone academic unit and expanded enrollment from 200 to over 1,500 students.

At AU, Dr. Holcomb-McCoy led key partnerships, including the AU/DCPS Teacher Pipeline Project, and co-led a multi-million-dollar JPMorgan Chase-funded initiative to launch the Advancing Early Education Collaborative (AEEC), a credentialing program supporting the early childhood workforce in the D.C. region.

She previously held leadership roles at Johns Hopkins University as Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Vice Dean of Academic Affairs in the School of Education, where she launched the Faculty Diversity Initiative and the School Counseling Fellows Program. Her earlier appointments include faculty positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Brooklyn College (CUNY).

Dr. Holcomb-McCoy began her career as a kindergarten teacher, later transitioning to roles as a school counselor and family therapist. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia (B.A., M.Ed.) and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Ph.D.).

A 2023 Aspen Institute ASCEND Fellow and Fellow of the American Counseling Association, Dr. Holcomb-McCoy is a nationally recognized leader in educator preparation, with a scholarly and advocacy focus on opportunity for all and the full educator pipeline.