Michael Barber

Michael is a senior program officer with The Brinson Foundation, where he leads the foundation’s education priority area. He also teaches courses in the College of Education at DePaul University, where he instructs and mentors the next generation of teachers. Michael has previously taught in middle school, high school, and community college contexts. He has partnered with district and school leaders in Chicago Public Schools to connect research with practice, design improvement strategies, and build both learning-focused and internal monitoring tools. He earned his Ph.D. from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, where he contributed new understandings about researcher and teacher collaborations to design curriculum and instruction to support adolescent literacy development.