Pankau transitioned from a high school English teacher to IEA staff in January 2023. Since first becoming an educator in 2012, Pankau has taught English to high school and middle school students in the Pocatello/Chubbuck and Soda Spring school districts. She first became involved with the IEA in 2016 when she became building representative in her school and became Region 5’s representative on IEA’s Human and Civil Rights Committee. In 2018, she became a facilitator for the National Education Association’s Leaders for Just Schools initiative. She teaches as an adjunct faculty member at Idaho State University and has volunteered for literacy and human rights programs at the College of Southern Idaho and the City of Pocatello. Pankau earned her bachelor’s degree in English teaching at Boise State University and her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction for adolescent literacy through Concordia University Online. She loves to garden, make believe with her kiddo, enjoy the company of her animals (one corgi, one cat, eleven chickens, and a rabbit), read a book or take a long walk with her spouse.

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber