Richard Light

Harvard University

Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning

Richard J. Light is a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. His work focuses on ways to collect and analyze information to improve policy decisions. He is director of the Harvard Assessment Seminars, a consortium that brings together faculty and senior administrators from twenty-four colleges and universities to carry out research on college effectiveness. Light has been elected president of the American Evaluation Association and chaired the Panel on Youth for the National Academy of Sciences. He serves on the National Advisory Board for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the National Board of the Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the board of directors of the American Association for Higher Education. He was honored with the Paul Lazarsfeld Award for distinguished contributions to scientific practice and by Vanderbilt University as one of America's great teachers. He received his PhD in statistics from Harvard University. Light's books include By Design: Planning Research in Higher Education, Summing Up: The Science of Reviewing Research(with David Pillemer), and Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds.