Education Innovator and Director Emeritus at Edutopia
Dr. Milton Chen is Senior Fellow and Executive Director, emeritus, at The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), a non-profit operating foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area that utilizes its multimedia website Edutopia.org and documentary films to communicate a new vision for 21st century schools. He served as executive director of GLEF for 12 years from 1998 to 2010. During his tenure, Edutopia.org became known as a destination site for educators and others interested in educational innovation and won numerous honors, including the 2009 Webby People’s Voice Award for best education website. Site traffic has grown to more than 700,000 unique visits per month.
Milton has also been the Founding Director of the KQED Center for Education (PBS) in San Francisco; Director of Research at Sesame Workshop in New York, helping develop Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and 3-2-1 Contact; and Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He currently serves as Chairman of the Panasonic Foundation in New Jersey, which supports superintendent leadership and district improvement, and the Games and Learning Publishing Council at the Joan Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. He is also a member of advisory boards for the National Park Service and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at St. Vincent College. His 2010 book, Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools, was selected as one of the 10 best education books of the year by the American School Board Journal.
Milton lives in San Francisco with his wife, Dr. Ruth Cox, Faculty Liaison for Academic Technology at San Francisco State University. Their daughter, Maggie, is a 3rd-year medical student at UCLA. He enjoys running, golf, yoga, and tennis, but fears he is destined to be mediocre at all of them. Perhaps most importantly, on his 50th birthday, Dr. Chen was named a Jedi Master by George Lucas!