Shauna Waters has been a teacher since 2001. She has taught in Indiana University’s Intensive English Program and Aichi University’s Comparative Cultures Department in Toyohashi, Japan. She is currently the dual enrollment English Composition I instructor, Advanced Placement (AP) English literature and composition teacher, Tech Champion, Academic Team sponsor, newspaper adviser and National Honor Society adviser at West Lauderdale High School in Collinsville, Mississippi. Additionally, she has served as a reader for the AP English Literature and Composition national exam in 2010, 2011, and 2014 – 2023.

Waters has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mississippi State University with a minor in Spanish and a Master of Arts in teaching English to speakers of other languages and applied linguistics from Indiana University. She is pursuing an educational specialist degree in educational leadership at William Carey University.

Waters seeks to ensure students build flexibility by developing 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. She also encourages them to reach boldly for opportunities, show compassion and believe in themselves. While she has been honored as Mississippi Teacher of the Year, seven-time Mississippi STAR teacher, Yale Educator and U.S. Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher, her greatest achievements are when former students report her class as properly preparing them for their next steps.

In her rare spare time, she enjoys traveling, messing about with her camera or her fountain pens, reading things not required for teaching and spending time with the assorted cats and dogs who have adopted her.