MASC/MASS 2016: Speakers - Ronald Ferguson

Ronald Ferguson is an MIT-trained economist who has taught at Harvard University since 1983. His teaching and publications cover a variety of issues in education and economic development. In addition to teaching and writing, he consults actively with school departments and agencies at all levels of government on efforts to raise achievement levels and close achievement gaps. He is the creator of the widely used Tripod Student and Teacher Surveys and co-founder of Tripod Education Partners, the faculty director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, and a faculty associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. He was also faculty co-chair of the Pathways to Prosperity Initiative on adolescent-to-adult transitions at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. After 31 years as full-time faculty, he transitioned into an adjunct position in 2014.

Most of his research since the mid-1990s has focused on racial achievement gaps and school improvement, appearing in publications of the National Research Council, the Brookings Institution, and the US Department of Education, in addition to various books and journals. Ron earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and Ph.D. from MIT, both in economics. He has been happily married for 38 years and has two grown sons.