Alan Ruby senior fellow at Penn’s Graduate School of Education (GSE), was invested in the Order of Australia, that country’s award for achievement and merit in service to country and humanity, earlier this summer. Mr. Ruby recently worked with Kim Beazley, Australia’s minister of employment, education, training and youth affairs, to lead the country’s first significant steps towards a national curriculum framework, expanding the scope of Australia’s system of vocational and higher education, prioritizing the teaching of east-Asian languages and opening universities and colleges to more foreign students.

At Penn GSE, Mr. Ruby works to improve higher education programs around the world. He was instrumental in establishing a relationship with education leaders in Kazakhstan, where he and his colleagues have consulted with the government in trying to modernize its university system. He advised on founding Nazarbayev University, an English-language university with a goal of preparing graduates for master’s and PhD programs at world-class institutions around the world. He is now looking at what the makers of massive open online courses can learn from social media about building and retaining users and continues teaching about the many ways education can give all young people more choices in life.