The John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and Senior Director of Harvard Project Zero
Nominated By: Patricia Neudecker
Gardner received undergraduate degrees from Harvard and the London School of Economics; a PhD from Harvard, and Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Harvard Medical School and Boston Aphasia Research Center. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from 26 colleges and universities, including institutions in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, and South Korea. In 2005 and again in 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world.
The author of 25 books translated into 28 languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be adequately assessed by standard psychometric instruments. His work is best described as an effort to understand and explicate the broadest and highest reaches of human thought, with a particular focus on intellectual capacity. The end result of much of his research in Project Zero is to achieve more personalized curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy, and the quality of interdisciplinary efforts in education. Currently Gardner is investigating the nature of trust in contemporary society and ethical dimensions entailed in the use of the new digital media.
