I remember when I was in high school, when I really started thinking about career paths, my mom told me, “whatever you do, don’t go into education.” It’s not that she was anti-education, she was an educator herself. Every day, though, she would come home with a fresh horror story from a technical and alternative high school in rural Oklahoma. I cannot even repeat some of these tales on EdLab, but I can report she is now happily retired. Of course, here I am now, sitting in Teachers College, working in the heart of education. I didn’t listen. Sorry, mom.

Ryan M. Allen is a Content Creator for the EdLab, with a specific focus on writing articles for New Learning Times. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he majors in international and comparative education and specializes in political science. He recently co-edited a book volume on Kuo Ping Wen, the first Chinese Ph.D. graduate from Teachers College and an important educational thinker in the first half of the 20th Century, entitled Kuo Ping Wen: Scholar, Statesman, and Reformer.

In recent years, Ryan has published articles on soft power, university rankings, and Chinese educational development. He was awarded the Confucius China Studies Program Fellowship in 2017 and did his field research at Beijing Normal University, researching the impact of university rankings on the higher education sector in China. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Berkeley College in New York City, where he teaches political science, American history, and cultural courses.

On social media, you can follow Ryan on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd. You can also find his photography on the @BladeRunnerReality Instagram page. His photography was featured on Gizmodo, WNYC, Complex, and the front page of Instagram.