RIASPA is pleased to announce that Dr. Milton Chen will be our keynote speaker at our Lights On Afterschool! Breakfast of Champions in October 2012.

About Dr. Chen

Dr. Milton Chen is a senior fellow and executive director emeritus of The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), a nonprofit operating foundation founded by the filmmaker in 1991. GLEF utilizes media, especially its multimedia website and documentary films, to tell inspiring stories of how interactive technologies are transforming America’s schools.

Dr. Chen’s book, Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Education in Our Schools, explores the “edges” in education—the places where K-12 learning has already seen revolutionary changes through pioneering reform and the use of technology. An afterschool and summer learning advocate, one of Dr. Chen’s “edges” concerns innovation in out-of-school time.

Prior to joining GLEF in 1998, Dr. Chen was the founding director of the KQED Center for Education & Lifelong Learning (PBS) in San Francisco. He has served as a research director at Sesame Workshop in New York, where he worked on PBS children’s series including Sesame Street, The Electric Company (reading), and 3-2-1 Contact (science). He also served for two years as an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research interests focus on educational innovation and the role of new technologies and media, especially the Internet.

Dr. Chen received an A.B. in social studies from Harvard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in communication research from Stanford University.