About Cheryl Ayers, MBA, PhD

Starting her career as a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high school teacher and work-based learning coordinator, Dr. Cheryl Ayers has more than 25 years of experience in creating and delivering customized professional development programs, undergraduate/graduate university courses, curricula, and certification examinations in economics, personal finance, and entrepreneurship for K-12 pre/in-service teachers and students, adult educators, adult service providers, workforce development practitioners, correctional educators, and other like-minded professionals from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.

Her research and scholarship focus on teaching economics, personal finance, and entrepreneurship in an accessible and multidisciplinary way that empowers individuals for more productive and fulfilling lives and careers with an emphasis on economic reasoning skills and tools used to make more informed decisions.  She helped mandate Virginia’s Economics & Personal Finance course as a high school graduation requirement and write the standards of learning, as well as create Virginia’s Institutes in 2008 to train educators to teach the course that are still being used today by the Virginia Council on Economic Education (VCEE). 

More recently, she recently published the first research-based theory of effective economics instruction at the secondary level, is the national 2023 NAEE Economics Pedagogy Scholar Award recipient, and spearheaded the creation of the U.S. Entrepreneurship Certification Examination for high school students and adult learners nationwide.  Dr. Ayers enjoys wearing many instructional hats in the Innovation & Gig Economy as an education innovator and consultant—that is, an edupreneur.  She is currently the founder and director of the U.S. Economic Empowerment Project, co-director of the Virginia Tech Center for Economic Education, master teacher for the National Council on Economic Education (CEE), and creator/professor of the national Online Entrepreneurship Institute for the Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) and national Online Personal Finance Institute for the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE).  

Dr. Ayers is also passionate about providing retroactive opportunities for disenfranchised, marginalized, and underserved youth and adults with limited education and income who did not have the opportunity to learn about economics, personal finance, and entrepreneurship in school or at home.  Her vision is to be a part of the solution in reducing poverty, stimulating economic growth, and empowering all members of society with a more prosperous future.

She earned a B.S. in Career and Technical Education (Marketing/Adult Education) from Virginia Tech, M.B.A. from the University of Lynchburg, and Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction/Teacher Education and Development in Economic Education from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro.