Dr. Stephanie Gonzales Kirik grew up in southeastern Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan for both her bachelor's degree in English (German minor) and master's degree in secondary education. In 2024, she earned her EdD in educational technology from the University of Florida. 

The '25/'26 school year is Dr. Kirik's fifteenth year of teaching secondary ELA classes and her first year living in Pennsylvania. For the last ten years, she taught middle school literature (grades 6-8) at a Catholic school in northern Virginia, and before that, she taught middle and high school students in southeastern Michigan. Over the course of her career, she has taught at the middle and high school levels in public, private, and charter schools in Michigan, Virginia, and now Pennsylvania.

In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, arts/crafts, choral music, playing clarinet, hiking, and spending time with her husband and cats.