Lilian Katz was a Professor Emerita of early childhood education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was also principal investigator for the Illinois Early Learning Project, a contributor to the Early Childhood and Parenting Collaborative, and editor of the first on-line peer-reviewed early-childhood journal, Early Childhood Research & Practice. She was born and raised in England and received her Ph.D. in Child Development from Stanford University in 1968.