Rob Tierney is a Professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (2000-2010), an Honorary Professor and immediate Past Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney (2010-13), a Visiting Scholar at Beijing Normal University and a conjoint Professor for the Wollotuka Centre at the University of Newcastle. He has served as a member of the Faculties at the Ohio State University, the University of Illinois, University of Arizona, Harvard University and University of California-Berkeley.

Rob has published books and scholarly articles focused upon literacy education, teacher development, cross-national educational research, educational assessment and equity. His recent projects include research on global epistemologies and cross-cultural research, digital literacy and meaning making, the nature of educational scholarship across countries, teacher development projects in China and indigenous developments in Australia. He has served as editor of Reading Research Quarterly and an editorial board member to the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, the British Educational Research Journal, Journal of Literacy Research and Reading Research Quarterly. He has pursued funded research for various US government and Canadian agencies and been engaged in projects for UNESCO in Africa, Children’s Television Workshop, Apple Computer, the World Bank, various foundations and university consortium groups globally, across America and the Asia-Pacific region.

In Canada, Rob served as the President of the Association of Canadian Deans of Education where he guided the formulation of a National Accord on Teacher Education and a National Accord on Education Research. In Australia, he has been actively involved in national, state and local teacher education, educational research and indigenous efforts.

During his tenure in the US, he was President of the Literacy Research Association and Chair of the National Assembly of Research for the National Council of Teachers of English. He was engaged with graduate level research and teacher education initiatives and responsible for oversight of the National Eisenhower Center for Science and Mathematics Education and the ERIC clearinghouse for Science and Mathematics Education as well as US Reading Recovery’s national office. He has been the recipient of a number of international and national awards including the W. S. Gray Award for contributions to literacy education, American Council of Teacher Education Award for contributions to Teacher Education and Beijing Normal University Award for contributions to international research collaborations. In Canada he received an award and lifetime membership in the Association of Canadian Deans of Education for his work.