Dr. Lilyana Auster is an educator and school administrator currently serving as the principal of First State Military Academy, a Delaware charter school focused on developing academic excellence and leadership skills through STEM-focused instruction and military structure. Dr. Auster celebrates more than 15 years of distinction in the field of education and over 10 years as a professional engineer. She holds a Doctor of Education from Quinnipiac University and a second doctoral degree in administrative leadership from Concordia University, in addition to master’s degrees in civil and highway engineering, education, and English as a second language instruction. Dr. Auster began teaching as a calculus professor at the Moscow Highway Engineering Institute and has consulted for the Australian government and several American charter school projects in addition to working as an ESL and SAT tutor.
In 2007, Dr. Auster moved into administrative leadership roles as a mathematics teacher-leader and administrative intern for New Haven Public Schools, where she remained for the next seven years. Between 2014 and 2016, she was an instructional leader at Windham Middle School, departing to accept a position with Hartford Public Schools as a K-12 mathematics curriculum specialist helping to develop and implement classroom interventions based on district-level data. Dr. Auster spent the next four years with Stamford Public Schools as the district’s professional development coordinator and mathematics curriculum supervisor before joining Ames Community School District as a learning recovery director in 2021. In recognition of her dedication to her career, she has received numerous academic awards and a commendation for her contributions to establishing a district-wide parent institute in one of her prior positions.
Dr. Auster credits her success to her family and to the resilience she developed as a former resident of the Soviet Union and an immigrant to the United States. She is motivated by her empathy for the students she works with and a desire to see them succeed in life and continues to grow as a professional and look for more ways to serve her school community.
