2021 NOIIE Symposium

Dr. Alan J. Daly, is a Professor and the Director of Educational Leadership Doctoral Programs in the Department of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego.  Alan’s research and teaching are influenced by his 16 years of public school experience in a variety of instructional and leadership roles.  His research primarily focuses on the role of social networks, leadership, educational policy, and organization structures and the relationship between those elements on the educational attainment of traditionally marginalized student populations.

In support of that effort, Professor Daly has published over 100 peer reviewed journal articles with the vast majority drawing on social network theory and analysis, four books (Social Network Theory and Educational Change, Using Research Evidence in Schools, Thinking and Acting Systemically: Improving School Districts Under Pressure, and Leading Holistically.), and over 200 peer reviewed papers at international conferences. He was most recently the Chair of the Department of Education Studies and a Fulbright Scholar in New Zealand and South Africa.

Dr. Amelia Peterson is part of the founding faculty of the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), which she is joining in 2021 from her position as a Fellow in theSocial Policy department of the London School of Economics. LIS is a new university dedicated to designing education to tackle complex problems. Amelia has studied a wide range of issues related to the adaptation of education systems to emerging and future conditions. Her dissertation traced contemporary changes in upper secondary education, including the “hybridisation” of academic and vocational education. Her work has been published in both academic and practitioner books and journals and recognised by an award from the American Political Science Association. She is a co-author of Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World (2021, Cambridge University Press) and Design Meets the Real World (Harvard University Press, under commission).

Amelia completed her PhD dissertation in Education Policy and Programme Evaluation at Harvard University, from which she also holds a master’s degree in Human Development and Psychology. During her studies, she was a Harvard Inequality and Social Policy Fellow, as well as a junior visiting scholar in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford. She worked previously at Innovation Unit, a non-profit consultancy based in London which works on transformation in education, health, and social services. Beyond Innovation Unit, Amelia has been commissioned by international and national organisations including the OECD, the RSA, and Nesta. She has taught and supervised undergraduate and graduate students in Education and Public Policy at Harvard and at the University of Bristol, and has also been an intervention teacher for 11 to 16 year olds in a state secondary school here in the UK.