Gertrude Marilyn Tinker Sachs

Ph.D., Department of Curriculum, University of Toronto, 1989
M.A., Department of Curriculum, University of Toronto, 1984
M.Sc., University of Miami, 1981
B.Ed., University of Miami, 1979;
Teachers Certificate, College of the Bahamas/University of the West Indies, 1974

Reading, Literacy, Language and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESL/EFL), Teacher Professional Development

Gertrude Tinker Sachs (Ph.D.) is a professor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), language and literacy in the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in Georgia State University’s College of Education & Human Development. As a critical intercultural international teacher educator professor, Tinker Sachs’s research focuses on inquiry-oriented local and international teacher professional development through transformative, culturally responsive and sustaining literacy pedagogies in English as a first or additional language in low-income communities. Dr. Tinker Sachs has numerous peer refereed journal articles and book chapters and is the author/co-editor of five books, including “Critical Mass in the Teacher Education Academy: Symbiosis and Diversity” (2014), “EFL/ESL Cases: Contexts for Teacher Professional Development” (2007) and “Action Research in English Language Teaching” (2002). She is the founding editor of the Critical Praxis Strand of Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, former Senior Editor of GATESOL in Action and incoming founding editor of the new international and interdisciplinary peer-refereed journal, Tradewinds Journal of Education for the African Diaspora Community.

Dr. Tinker Sachs has collaborative research projects with colleagues across the United States and in other countries, including the Bahamas, Canada and Hong Kong. She is the project leader for local and international projects, including Bahamian Leaders in Education and the Intergenerational Family Project (Bahamas) and The African Diaspora Coming Together Research Project and the Intergenerational Teacher Education Project (USA). Tinker Sachs has an interest in activist research and community literacy practices as is evidenced by her pioneering literacy-engaged work in Atlanta communities (e.g. the Comic Book Club ATL Housing Project and the People in the Parks Literacy Project).

Dr. Tinker Sachs is the former Chair of the Department of Middle and Secondary Education (2015-2024). She was elected by the faculty and appointed by the dean and was the first person of color to serve as the chair of a department in the College of Education & Human Development and the second person of African descent to have served in that role at Georgia State University.