Susanna Loeb has been appointed the inaugural Kissick Family Professor.
Loeb is the faculty director of the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which aims to develop and disseminate evidence-driven learning solutions, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Her research focuses on education policy and its role in improving educational opportunities for students, addressing issues including educator career choices and professional development, school finance and governance, and early childhood systems. She leads the Getting Down to Facts initiatives, which provide nonpartisan research and analysis to inform education policymaking in California.
Loeb, who first joined the faculty of the GSE in 1999, directed the Annenberg Institute at Brown University from 2018 until she returned to Stanford in 2023. During her first appointment at Stanford, she founded and directed the Center for Education Policy Analysis and held the Barnett Family Professorship in Education. In 2020, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In his nomination, Schwartz highlighted both Loeb’s scholarly accomplishments and her leadership. “John Kissick was a leader's leader,” Schwartz wrote. “The family has a great interest in honoring John's legacy with a faculty member who is both a leader and a supporter of leadership. Professor Loeb fits both of these criteria."
The Kissick Family Professorship was established this year through a gift from Mary Kathleen and the late John Kissick, MBA '70, whose philanthropic and volunteer work has supported educational opportunity and student success.