Biography

Brad Olsen is Professor of Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research and teaching focus on teachers, teaching, and teacher education (with emphases on professional knowledge, identity. and school reform); English education; critical pedagogy; sociolinguistics; philosophical perspectives on education; and qualitative research methods. Dr. Olsen is series editor for The Teacher’s Toolkit (2010, Paradigm Publishers). He is a recipient of the 2007 UCSC Excellence in Teaching award. His current work examines the role of teachers and teacher education in the contemporary education reform climate.

Before arriving at UCSC, Dr. Olsen was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in education from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002. Prior to this, Dr. Olsen worked as a high school English teacher in Maine, Massachusetts, and South America, and a school administrator and teacher educator in California. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and English from Bowdoin College in 1989, and his M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1993.

Updated 10/12/2015