Zachary Stein received his Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2006. He is currently a student of philosophy and cognitive development pursuing a doctorate at Harvard. He is also the Senior Analyst for the Developmental Testing Service where he has worked for years employing cognitive developmental models and metrics in a variety of real world contexts.
His research focuses on theoretical work in psychometrics, developmental assessment, and the philosophy of education. In recent years he has published in a variety of outlets on issues ranging from cognitive development and pedagogy to philosophy of education and interdisciplinarity. He is currently working on many projects, including editing and introducing a special issue of the journal Mind, Brain, and Education that will focus on research and practice involving learning sequences (i.e. lines of development) and writing a series of publications outlining quality control parameters for the construction and use of developmental assessments.
He has been involved with numerous empirical research efforts including a major leadership development project carried out for a network of federal government agencies and studies on graduate student’s epistemological development at Harvard and John F. Kennedy University.
Zak has experience running workshops on topics in developmental psychology and Mind, Brain, and Education with primary and secondary school teachers, management consultants, and leadership experts, in public and higher education, the federal government, and industry. He also serves as head Teaching Fellow for the Mind, Brain, and Education Ed.M program at Harvard.
While at Harvard he has received many awards including an Intellectual Contribution Award and a Faculty Tribute Fellowship. This summer he received the award for best overall research contribution at the first biannual international Integral Theory Conference.
He lives with his wife, Meghan, an illustrator and artist, in Concord, MA. It was Meghan who convinced Zak to buy a used copy of Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality in 2000, the reading of which derailed his career as a musician and caused all kinds of problems, including bibliophilia, philosophia, amor fati, and gaudium in veritate…
