Quick Facts
Biography
James Edward Ryan in an American educator, author, lawyer, and legal scholar. He is the 11th dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education. He was installed as dean on July 1, 2013, succeeding Kathleen McCartney. He is also the author of Wait, What?: And Life's Other Essential Questions and Five Miles Away, A World Apart: One City, Two Schools, and the Story of Educational Opportunity in Modern America. On September 15, 2017, it was announced that he would replace Teresa Sullivan as the ninth President of the University of Virginia.
Biography
Prior to serving as dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education, Ryan was the Matheson and Morgenthau Distinguished Professor of law and Weber Research Professor of civil liberties and human rights at the University of Virginia School of Law. He graduated from Yale University and University of Virginia School of Law, and clerked for then-chief judge of the 9th Circuit J. Clifford Wallace and then-Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Ryan lives in Lincoln, MA with his wife, four children, and various animals including two cats, two dogs, and nine chickens.