Eric Hamilton

Biography

Eric Hamilton brings to GSEP a background that includes technology innovation, entrepreneurship, learning sciences, education policy, global collaboration, and political science. He holds software patents in screen-sharing technology and has held leadership roles in both national and international government and university technology initiatives. At the National Science Foundation, where he served in the Senior Executive Service (SES), he oversaw learning science and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and grant programs. He has also served on multiple technology startup and technology transfer boards. Internationally, Hamilton was a senior program officer for UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, collaborating with UN Member States on future-oriented curriculum development, and held a multi-year Fulbright Research Fellowship working with the government of Namibia on technology integration in school curricula. He served as US lead on a 16-lab collaboration funded by the Finnish and US governments, focusing on learning technology and technology transfer.

As a learning scientist and technologist, Hamilton has secured more than 60 grants from federal, state, and private agencies. His recent work, supported by NSF and the Spencer Foundation, includes the Asset-Based Learning Environments (ABLE) project, a multi-year international research initiative involving learners from twelve countries collaborating in digital makerspace environments. Hamilton is also an active contributor to the growing international quantitative ethnography research community, applying these methods in published studies on depolarizing political discourse.  He also currently co-hosts the "Just I" podcast with Conrad Hughes, head of the International School of Los Angeles, exploring the nature of intelligence, artificial intelligence, and schooling in 2026.

Immediately prior to joining GSEP, Hamilton served as director of the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the United States Air Force Academy. Earlier in his career, he was a faculty member in mathematics and computer science at Loyola University Chicago, where he organized and led a nationally recognized consortium of universities, NGOs, and public schools aimed at increasing participation of underrepresented populations in STEM fields. Hamilton began his professional career as a mathematics teacher for grades 6–12. He earned college and graduate degrees at Chicago and Northwestern. He has also served as a visiting professor at Hiroshima University, Tampere University of Technology (Finland), Edge Hill University (UK), and the University of Namibia.

Education

• PhD, Northwestern University
• MAT, University of Chicago
• BA, University of Chicago

Selected Works

Publications, grants, and other activities are summarized at http://bit.ly/EricHamiltonBioVita