About CIEB | International Advisory Board | CIEB Staff

The Center on International Education Benchmarking is advised by some of the world’s leading experts on education. Members of the advisory board include:

Kai-ming Cheng, professor and chair of education and senior advisor to the vice-chancellor at the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, trained as a mathematician and worked as a school teacher and principal. Recently appointed to China’s State Advisory Committee on Curriculum Reform, he was also appointed as a member of the Hong Kong Education Commission, where he was instrumental in the comprehensive reform of the education system in Hong Kong that began in 1999.

Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun professor of education at Stanford University Graduate School of Edcation, is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. She served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. While at Stanford University, Darling-Hammond has launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network.

Michael Day, professor of education and director of the School of Education at Roehampton University. Formerly, Professor Day served as executive director of teacher training for the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), Manchester, England. Before joining the TDA, he worked at the Department for Education and Skills for 11 years on a range of education and employment policy areas including special needs, post-16 qualifications, the nursery school voucher scheme, and support and guidance to socially excluded young people. He started his career as a researcher and later trained as a primary teacher before moving to King Alfred’s College, Winchester, as a senior lecturer specializing in primary education.

Roland Østerlund, an internationally recognized specialist in the field of vocational education and training and human resource development. Until recently, he was director general of the Ministry of Education, Denmark, and was responsible for the national system of vocational education and training. His international experience covers the US; Asia; Europe, including Eastern Europe; and South Africa.

Sing Kong Lee, director of the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore, and dean of the National Institute of Education International. At NIE, he has served various positions of leadership and spearheaded several initiatives, most notably redesigning the organization’s structure, and as dean of the Graduate Programmes and Research Office, implementing a wide range of professional development initiatives to enable teachers to develop professionally and to acquire postgraduate certification.

Tony Mackay, Chair of the recently announced Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL); Deputy Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA); and Executive Director of the Centre for Strategic Education, Melbourne, Australia. He is the immediate Past President of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association; Board Director of the Australian Council for Educational Research; Board Member of the University of Melbourne, Graduate School of Education and Australian College of Educators 2006 medallist.

Barry McGaw, professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne and chair of the board of ACARA. He previously served as director for education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He was executive director of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and professor of education at Murdoch University. He started his career as a science teacher in Queensland secondary schools.

Chew Leng Poon, deputy director of research and evaluation for the planning division, Singapore Ministry of Education where she is responsible for a variety of international benchmarking studies and is the project manager for ATC21S for Singapore, an international project on 21st century skills.

Ben Levin, professor and Canada Research Chair in Education Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the Univeristy of Toronto, has twice served as Deputy Minister for Education for the Province of Ontario.  He also previously served as Deputy Minister of Advanced Education and Deputy Minister of Education, Training and Youth for the Province of Manitoba.

Pasi Sahlberg, director general of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation (CIMO) in Helsinki, Finland. He is also an educator, researcher and school improvement activist. He has experience in educational reforms, training teachers and leaders, coaching schools to change and advising education policymakers around the world. He has worked in schools, universities, state-level administration (the Ministry of Education, Finland), and international development organizations (the World Bank, OECD, and the European Union).

Andreas Schleicher, special advisor on education policy to the Secretary-General and Deputy Director of the OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills. Before joining the OECD, he served as director for analysis at the International Association for Educational Achievement within the Institute for Educational Research in the Netherlands.

Robert B. Schwartz, Francis Keppel Professor of Practice in Educational Policy and Administration and academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has played a variety of roles in education and government over the past four decades, including high school teacher and principal, foundation officer, and president of Achieve, Inc.

Vivien Stewart, senior advisor for education at the Asia Society, was the director of education programs at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and has also been a senior adviser on education for the United Nations.

Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the University of London’s Institute of Education where he recently completed a term as the Institute’s Deputy Director. He previously served as Dean and Assistant Principal of the School of Education at King’s College London and as Senior Research Director of the Learning and Teaching Research Center at Educational Testing Service.

Minxuan Zhang, President of Shanghai Normal University, is also deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission. At present, Professor Zhang chairs the project of the open door policy framework design for Chinese international education in the future for the government of China.