Eric Hanushek

Eric Hanushek is the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and one of the world’s leading scholars in the economics of education. His influential research has shaped education policy globally, with widely cited studies on teacher effectiveness, school accountability, class size, and the economic returns to educational quality. In 2021, he received the Yidan Prize for Education Research, the field’s most prestigious international award. He used the prize money to found the Africa Fellows in Education Program, a training program focused on improving education policy in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has authored or edited 26 books and more than 300 articles, and he serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the Society of Labor Economists and the American Educational Research Association. His public service includes roles as a commissioner on the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission, chair of the National Board for Education Sciences (2008–2010), Deputy Director of the Congressional Budget Office (1983–1985), and member of the National Assessment Governing Board (2019–2023). A member of the National Academy of Education and the International Academy of Education, he earned his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after graduating as a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. https://hanushek.stanford.edu/