James E Ryan

President, University of Virginia

James E. Ryan is the 11th dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A leading expert on law and education, Ryan has written extensively about the ways in which law structures educational opportunity. His articles and essays address such topics as school desegregation, school finance, school choice, standards and testing, pre-K, and the intersection of special education and neuroscience. Ryan is also the co-author of the textbook Educational Policy and the Law, and the author of Five Miles Away, A World Apart, which was published in 2010 by Oxford University Press.

In addition, Ryan has authored articles on constitutional law and theory and has argued before the United States Supreme Court. Before coming to Harvard, Ryan was the Matheson & Morgenthau Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as academic associate dean from 2005–09 and founded and directed the school’s Program in Law and Public Service. While at Virginia, Ryan also received an All-University Teaching Award, an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, and several awards for his scholarship. Ryan has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Auckland.

He has also served on numerous education boards and commissions, including the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity and Excellence Commission and the board of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Ryan received his A.B., summa cum laude, from Yale University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia, which he attended on a full scholarship and from which he graduated first in his class. After law school, Ryan clerked for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and then worked in Newark, N.J. as a public interest lawyer before entering into teaching. Ryan and his wife, Katie, live near Cambridge with their four school-age children.

"Great teaching has the power to change the world, and I am proud to support the Global Teacher Prize in their work to recognize the tremendous impact an educator can have in the lives of students."