Dr. Novak earned her doctoral degree in art education from the University of Georgia (UGA). Originally from Vienna, Austria, Dr. Novak’s research and teaching interests focus on youth-led arts and community programming, emergent pedagogies, art education in social movements of the 20th century, and working and collaborating closely with students to reimagine art education. In 2015, she founded the School of Collaboration and Invention, a program that facilitates spaces for youth to engage in art and design through collaboration, community engagement, radical pedagogy, material interventions, and other site-specific activisms and media. She recently co-authored a chapter with a former student in an upcoming anthology titled Cultivating Critical Conversations in Art Education: Honoring Student Voice, Identity, and Agency, and in previous roles worked closely with youth to develop exhibitions, public programs, and a small community art garden. While at UGA, Dr. Novak taught teacher preparation courses and redesigned a Cultural Diversity in American Art online course, expanding content to include lessons on the interrelations of art museums and colonialism, art education and assimilation, contemporary Indigenous artists, disability and impairment as a creative force, and LGBTQ+ cinema. She obtained a master's in interdisciplinary design from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada; and a bachelor’s in graphic arts + design from Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. Dr. Novak is a member of the National Art Education Association and the College Art Association. While at UGA, she received the Robert Nix Award for Excellence in Art Education and the Wilson Center Public Impact Grant which provided the opportunity to collaborate with two senior faculty members to develop new art education programs at the University of Georgia's contemporary art gallery, the Athenaeum.

• Ph D in Art Education, University of Georgia (2023)

• Black Education and Art as Activism in the Southeastern United States during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements: Archival Research toward Racial Literacy. Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education 41 1 (2024), Christina Hanawalt, Lisa V. Novak, Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro, Anne Marie Satterfield.

• Confrontations with Chaos: A Spatio-Political Analysis of a University Contemporary Art Gallery as a Pedagogical Site (2024), Volume Cambridge, United Kingdom, Hanawalt Christina, Lisa V. Novak.
• Thinking, writing, becoming: Co-Speculating a Children-Led Art Museum (2024), Volume Cambridge, United Kingdom, Lisa V. Novak, Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro.
• Bouncing as Methodology in Art Education Research and Social Practice (2024), Volume Virtual, Lisa V. Novak.
• Site, Situatedness and Chaos: Mapping Spatiopolitical Forces in Pre-Service Teacher Education and Youth Art Programs (2024), Volume Seoul, South Korea, Lisa V. Novak, Christina Hanaalt.
• Bouncing and Living through Inquiry with Youth in Art Education Research (2024), Volume Minneapolis, Minnesota, Lisa V. Novak.

• Investigating the Impact of Education Legislation on PK-12 Art Teachers in the Southern US