Biography

Martin Kurzweil is the director of the Educational Transformation Program at Ithaka S+R (http://sr.ithaka.org), a not-for-profit in New York City that studies and supports the implementation of innovations that improve student postsecondary success. Since starting the program in 2015, Martin and his team have conducted research, convened stakeholders, and advised higher education leaders on topics such as proactive advising, adaptive learning, socioeconomic diversity, strategic finance, course redesign, non-degree credentials, accreditation, big data ethics, and the process of institutional change. Martin serves on the steering committee of the American Talent Initiative (www.americantalentinitiative.org), an effort of nearly 100 institutions to expand college opportunity for talented, lower-income students, which he and his team worked with the Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies to launch in 2016. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Martin has spent most of his career in education research and policy, including roles at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New York City Department of Education, and on the faculty of Columbia Law School. In addition to Ithaka S+R reports such as "Student Data in the Digital Era: An Overview of Current Practices” (https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.283890) and “Institutional Transformation for Student Success” (https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.284782), Martin has produced commissioned papers for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Council on Education, and published in outlets ranging from the Huffington Post to the California Law Review. He is the co-author of Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, which received the 2006 American Educational Research Association Outstanding Book Award.