Dan E. Davidson

Dan E. Davidson, PhD, is the co-founder and president emeritus of American Councils for International Education and emeritus professor of Russian and second language acquisition, Myra T. Cooley Lectureship, at Bryn Mawr College. He has been the director of American Councils Research Center (ARC) since 2017.

He is the author/editor of 24 books and 65 scholarly articles in the fields of language, culture, and educational development, including a major 20-year longitudinal analysis of adult second language acquisition during study abroad.

Dr. Davidson was named in 2015 to the Commission on Languages, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an elected foreign member of the Russian Academy of Education, the Ukrainian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, vice president of the International Association of Teachers of Russian (MAPRIAL), and past chair of the College Board World Languages Advisory Committee, the Joint National Committee for Languages, and the Alliance for International Education Exchange.

His most recent study, Assessing Language Proficiency and Intercultural Development in the Overseas Immersion Context, appeared in “Exploring the US Language Flagship Program. Professional Competence in a Second Language by Graduation (Multilingual Matters)” in 2016. Dr. Davidson completed his PhD in Slavic languages at Harvard University.