Laura Perna

Laura W. Perna is Vice Provost for Faculty, GSE Centennial Presidential Professor of Education, and Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHEAD) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). She holds bachelor’s degrees in economics and psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and earned her master’s in public policy and Ph.D. in education from the University of Michigan.

She has held leadership positions in the primary national scholarly associations in the field of higher education administration. Dr. Perna served as President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) from 2014 to 2015 and Vice President of the American Educational Research Association’s Division J (Postsecondary Education) from 2010 to 2013 and now is a member of the AERA Grants Governing Board. She has served on the editorial boards of leading journals including American Education Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Research in Higher Education. She is now serving as editor of Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research.

Among other honors, Dr. Perna has received the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania, Early Career Achievement Award from ASHE, Excellence in Public Policy in Higher Education Award from ASHE’s Council on Public Policy and Higher Education, the Dr. Constance Clayton Education Award from the Philadelphia College Prep Roundtable, and the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. In 2014, Dr. Perna was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the inaugural James S. Riepe Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, Dr. Perna was elected to the National Academy of Education.