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About
Nonie K. Lesaux, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development, is the 13th dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).
A member of the HGSE faculty since 2003, Lesaux’s research focuses on strategies and innovations to improve learning opportunities and literacy outcomes for children and youth. Her teaching focuses on literacy development and reform, early learning, and leading system-level change.
Lesaux works with school districts to investigate language, reading, and social-emotional development; classroom quality and academic growth; and strategies to accelerate language and reading comprehension. With states and communities, she brings tools and concepts from improvement science to strengthen literacy plans and policy initiatives, grade-level reading campaigns, and birth-to-eight early learning initiatives. She is co-director of the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at HGSE, which addresses the pervasive global challenge of simultaneously scaling and improving the quality of early education.
Lesaux officially assumed the role of dean in March 2025 after acting as interim dean from July 1, 2024. She served as academic dean at HGSE from 2017 to 2021. She was previously named the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society before her appointment to the Larsen chair in 2021.
To contact the dean’s office call 617-495-3401. For a full list of dean’s office faculty and staff, visit the office directory.