Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond is president of the Learning Policy Institute and president of the California State Board of Education. She is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University, where she founded the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and served as faculty sponsor of the Stanford Teacher Education Program, which she helped to redesign. She was previously executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. She also served as Director of the RAND Corporation’s education program and as an endowed professor at Columbia University, Teachers College. Darling-Hammond directed President Barack Obama's Education Policy Transition Team in 2008 and has consulted widely with federal, state, and local officials on strategies to improve education policy and practice. Darling-Hammond is past president of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education. She has received multiple awards for her contributions to research and policy, including AERA’s Distinguished Contributions to Research, Lifetime Achievement, Research Review, and Research-to-Policy awards. She has authored more than 600 publications and has received 14 honorary degrees in the U.S. and internationally. Darling-Hammond earned her EdD from Temple University. She was alsoa  former public school teacher and co-founded both a preschool and a public high school. 

updated 2025