Michael C. Johanek

Dr. Johanek is a Senior Fellow in the Education, Culture and Society Department within the Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), University of Pennsylvania, where he previously served as Director of the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership (2007-2024). He currently directs the Red Interamericana de Liderazgo Educational (RILE) and The Judgment Project. He is an affiliate faculty member of Perry World House, The Collegium Institute, and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies at Penn Arts and Sciences. He serves on the Steering Committee for Penn in Latin America and the Caribbean (PLAC). He is an International Visiting Professor at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and a Visiting Research Scholar/Adjunct Professor in the Center for History and Education, Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study, Teachers College Columbia University. Current R&D interests focus on the identification and formation of situated judgment, including using digital simulations; the development of professional clinical infrastructure on a cross-national basis; and the history of public agency in recent U.S. school reform through a Chicago-based historical case study.

Before coming to Penn in the spring of 2007, he served as Vice President of Professional Services for Teachscape, a for-profit blended technology services company, where he managed all service engagements nationally. He is the former Executive Director for K-12 Professional Development, The College Board, where he managed programs supporting over 500,000 middle and high school teachers, college faculty, coordinators, and administrators, including those involved in the Advanced Placement Program. He founded, developed, and managed a program development and operations department with responsibilities including new product development, in-person training, web services, electronic and print publications, regional office operational support, marketing and research. A former high school teacher in Cleveland, New York, and Lima, Peru, he taught in and managed the Fellows in Teaching Program and Urban Fellow Program at Teachers College, Columbia University prior to joining the College Board.

Dr. Johanek recently served on the board of The Loyola School (NYC), and on the Advisory Group for the Inter-American Teacher Education Network (AGITEN), Organization of American States; he previously served on the Advisory Council of the Penn Center for Educational Leadership and on the board of Research for Action, a non-profit organization engaged in education research and evaluation. Prior to serving as a reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education in the 2010 and 2012 Race to the Top competitions, he served on the department’s Working Group for Postsecondary Linkage Efforts to Improve College Readiness and on the independent Annenberg Commission on Public Schools for their Institutions of Democracy Project. He served as co-PI and advisor in several National Science Foundation-funded professional development research projects, on the National Education Advisory Board for the French & Indian War 250th Anniversary Commemoration, and on the Organization of American Historians-Advanced Placement Joint Advisory Board on Teaching the U.S. History Survey. He served on the Alumni Council at Teachers College, Columbia University, and on the Board of Trustees of The Concord Review. He has recently served as a peer reviewer for AERA, UCEA, Educational Researcher, Theory and Research in Education, Journal of School Leadership, the History of Education Society, and the Fondo de Investigaciones Educativas (PREAL). He co-founded SchoolSims, LLC, and founded Sapience, LLC, serving on the boards of both. He has taught at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education and consulted for school districts and ministries.