Michael Hansen

Michael Hansen holds the Herman and George R. Brown Chair in Governance Studies and is a senior fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. A labor economist by training, he has conducted original research on a wide array of education policy issues, with a specialization in teacher policy and school accountability. He has conducted original research on teacher diversity, teacher quality, student access to quality teaching, and STEM learning. Findings from Hansen’s research have received media coverage from prominent outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Politico, and Education Week. His work has also been published in peer-reviewed research journals including American Economic Review, Education Finance and Policy, Economica, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Educational Research Journal, among others. He is also editor for the Brown Center Chalkboard, the Brookings Institution’s blog on domestic education policy and research. Hansen is an Eisenhower Fellow (2020 Zhi-Xing China program) and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington.

Hansen is the co-author of the book, “Teacher Diversity and Student Success: Why Racial Representation Matters in the Classroom” (Harvard Education Press, 2021).