Daniel A. Wagner

Professional Biography

Dr. Dan Wagner is a Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the UNESCO Chair in Learning and Literacy, Founding Director of the International Literacy Institute (ILI; co-founded by UNESCO and the University of Pennsylvania), Founding Director of the federally-funded National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL), and Founding Director of Penn GSE’s International Educational Development master’s program. Dr. Wagner received his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Michigan, was a two-year postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Fellow at the International Institute of Education Planning in Paris, a Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Paris. He completed his undergraduate degree in Engineering at Cornell University and later served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.

Dr. Wagner has extensive experience in national and international educational issues and has been an international development advisor to UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, USAID, DFID, and others. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Wagner has also served as Chair of the Brookings Global Research Task Force on Learning. He was the recipient of the 2014 UNESCO Confucius International Literacy Prize. In 2017, he was appointed Special Advisor on Literacy to the UNESCO Director-General. In 2021, he was elected Honorary Fellow of the Comparative and International Education Society.