Dr. McKnight is the director of the Upper School, which includes students in the 6th through 12th grades. She started teaching English classes at Capitol in 2005 and moved into her administrative role in 2018.

Dr. McKnight completed her undergraduate degree in English Literature at Wheaton College (1996), after which she completed a master’s program in Secondary Education-Language Arts at The University of Montevallo (1998). She subsequently pursued and completed a master’s degree in English, with a concentration in Applied Linguistics (2000) and a doctorate in English, with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition (2009), at The University of Alabama. While completing graduate work at UA, she taught writing and literature courses in the English department there and taught middle school English at Brookwood Middle School (becoming tenured in the Tuscaloosa County system) and at The Capitol School. Since that time, Dr. McKnight has taught English, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies courses at the University and middle and high school English at Capitol. She currently has three children enrolled in the Upper School.