Catherine Compton-Lilly ('99, Ed.D.) spent the month of November in Japan as a participant of the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program. She was selected from a national pool of over 2,000 applicants by a panel of educators. The program allows distinguished primary- and secondary-school teachers in the United States to travel to Japan for three weeks to promote greater intercultural understanding between the two nations. She began her visit in Tokyo, where participants were oriented to Japanese life and culture and met with government officials and educators. They subsequently traveled to prefectures (states) where they had direct contact with teachers and students as well as a teachers college. They also visited cultural sites and local industries, and the home of a Japanese family. The program is sponsored by the Japanese government to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government's Fulbright Program, which has enabled more than 6,000 Japanese citizens to study in the United States.

Compton-Lilly has signed a book contract with Teachers College Press. The press has purchased the rights to her dissertation research that explores the ways urban children and their families experience the process of learning to read, and the role reading plays in their lives. The book's working title is Unknown Families: The Literate Lives of Urban Children and Their Families. She has also been appointed to the editorial board of Reading Teacher, a journal published by the International Reading Association.