David Perkins

David Perkins is the Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Professor of Teaching and Learning, Emeritus, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, recently retired from the Senior Faculty. He has conducted long-term programs of research and development in the areas of teaching and learning for understanding, creativity, problem-solving and reasoning in the arts, sciences, and everyday life. He has also studied the role of educational technologies in teaching and learning, and has designed learning structures and strategies in organizations to facilitate personal and organizational understanding and intelligence.

David Perkins received his Ph.D. in mathematics and artificial intelligence from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. As a graduate student he also was a founding member of Harvard Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He co-directed Project Zero for nearly 30 years, and now serves as senior co-director on its steering committee. 

His most recent book, published by Jossey-Bass in Fall 2014, is Future Wise: Educating our Children for a Changing World. His Making Learning Whole (Jossey-Bass, 2008) shares an approach to organizing learning around full meaningful endeavors. He is the author of The Mind’s Best Work on creativity (Harvard University Press, 1981), The Eureka Effect on creativity (Norton, 2001), Smart Schools on pedagogy and school development (The Free Press, 1992), Outsmarting IQ on intelligence and its cultivation (The Free Press, 1995), Knowledge as Design on teaching and learning for understanding (Erlbaum, 1986), The Intelligent Eye on learning to think through the arts (Getty, 1994), King Arthur’s Round Table: How Collaborative Conversations Create Smart Organizations (Wiley, 2003), and has co-authored and co-edited several other books, as well as publishing many articles.