David L. Kirp

David L. Kirp, a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. His research has explored a wide range of social policy domains, including primary and higher education, race and gender equality, affordable housing, and the AIDS crisis. Always focusing on pressing policy issues of the day, his research has attracted scholarly, policy activist, and popular audiences. His body of work includes some fifteen books, as well as many articles that have appeared in leading policy focused social science journals and law reviews. His research has been translated into numerous foreign languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Ukrainian. His latest books are The Sandbox Investment: ThePreschool Movement and Kids-First Politics (Harvard 2007), and Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education (Harvard 2003).

A former newspaper editor and syndicated columnist, David Kirp continues to contribute to leading national print media outlets, including the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, the American Prospect and The Nation, and appears as a policy expert on nationally broadcasted radio and televisions programs.

An activist in practice as well as in print, David Kirp founded the Harvard Center on Law and Education, a national law reform organization that is committed to promoting equal educational opportunity, he was a founding sponsor of First Place for Youth, and he has served on the boards of the Northern California chapter of the ACLU, the Shanti AIDS Project, and the Coro Leadership Center. He has also worked with numerous public agencies in the United States and abroad.