Michael C. Johanek is a Senior Fellow at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), University of Pennsylvania, where he is also Director of the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership; Co-Director of the Inter-American Educational Leadership Network; founding Director of the Penn Educational Leadership Simulations (PELS) Program; and affiliated faculty for the International Educational Development Program, and Education, Culture and Society Division. He teaches as Profesor Invitado Internacional at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Before coming to Penn, he served as Vice President of Professional Services for Teachscape, a for-profit blended technology services company, where he managed all service engagements nationally. He is the former Executive Director for K-12 Professional Development, The College Board, where he managed programs supporting over 500,000 middle and high school teachers, college faculty, coordinators, and administrators, including those involved in the Advanced Placement Program. He founded, developed, and managed a program development and operations department with responsibilities including new product development, in-person training, web services, electronic and print publications, regional office operational support, marketing and research. A former high school teacher in Cleveland, New York, and Lima, Peru, he taught in and managed the Fellows in Teaching Program and Urban Fellow Program at Teachers College, Columbia University prior to joining the College Board.

Dr. Johanek currently serves on the board of The Loyola School (NYC), and on the Advisory Group for the Inter-American Teacher Education Network (AGITEN), Organization of American States; he previously served on the Advisory Council of the Penn Center for Educational Leadership and on the board of Research for Action, a non-profit organization engaged in education research and evaluation. He has previously served on the U.S. Department of Education's Working Group for Postsecondary Linkage Efforts to Improve College Readiness, on the independent Annenberg Commision on Public Schools for their Institutions of Democracy Project, and as a reviewer for the DOE's 2010 and 2012 Race to the Top competitions. Dr. Johanek has also served as co-PI and advisor in several National Science Foundation-funded professional development research projects. He has also recently served as a peer reviewer for AERA, UCEA, Educational Researcher, Theory and Research in Education, Journal of School Leadership, the History of Education Society, and the Fondo de Investigaciones Educativas (PREAL).