Ben Wildavsky is a senior fellow in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation and author of The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World (Princeton University Press, 2010). He joined the Kauffman Foundation following an 18-year career as a writer and editor specializing in education and public policy. Most recently he was education editor of U.S. News & World Report, where he was the top editor of America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools.
Previously, Wildavsky was budget, tax, and trade correspondent for National Journal, higher education reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and executive editor of The Public Interest. His articles and reviews have also appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He blogs regularly for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s new global edition.
As a consultant to national education reformers, Wildavsky has prepared several influential reports, including "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of Higher Education," the September 2006 report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. In addition to numerous media appearance, he has spoken to audiences at Google, the Economist’s Human Potential conference, Harvard, Berkeley, the London School of Economics, the Committee for Economic Development, and many other venues.
Wildavsky graduated from Yale University (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude). He was a media fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in from 2004 to 2006, and a visiting fellow at Israel’s Shalem Center in the summer of 2009. He is currently a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.