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 and Research 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), a Fulbright scholar in Rabat, Paris, and at multiple universities in Japan. 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, FCDO, and others. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Educational Research Association. Among other honors, Dr. Wagner was recipient of a: Horace H. Rackman Prize fellow at the University of Michigan; Social Science Research Council Foreign Area fellow; UNESCO Confucius International Literacy Prize; Fulbright-Hays scholar (3 times); U.S. National Research Service Award; and Spencer fellow of the National Academy of Education. In 2021, he was elected honorary fellow of the Comparative and International Education Society.
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 2026, he was appointed Senior Advisor in Education to UNICEF.
Education
- Ph.D. (Developmental Psychology) University of Michigan, 1976
- M.A. (Experimental Psychology) University of Michigan, 1971
- B.S. (Operations Research Engineering) Cornell University, 1968
Areas of Expertise
- Learning as development
- International education and development
- Literacy, learning, and cognition in children, youth, and adults
- Language acquisition and multi-lingualism
- Educational technology and artificial intelligence
- Educational psychology
- Cultural psychology
Links
Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Wagner’s most recent multi-year projects have been in India, South Africa, and Morocco. In addition to over 200 professional publications, Dr. Wagner has written or edited more than 25 books (in English, with translations into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Japanese). His recent books include Learning as Development: Rethinking International Education in a Changing World (Routledge, 2025, 2nd ed.), Learning at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Science, Measurement, and Policy in Low-Income Countries (with Sharon Wolf and Robert Boruch, UNESCO, 2018), and Learning, Marginalization, and Improving the Quality of Education in Low-Income Countries (with Nathan Castillo and Suzanne Grant Lewis, Open Book Publishers, 2022).
Publications
Featured Publications
Journal Editorial Boards
Comparative Education Review
Advisory Board
Global Comparative Education
International Advisory Board
International Journal of Educational Development
International Editorial Board
International Journal of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education
Editorial Board