Suzanne Grant Lewis

Teachers, including one who served in the Peace Corps, another who taught a class on non-western civilization, and Stanford adjunct faculty member Joel Samoff, helped put Suzanne Grant Lewis, PhD ’88, on a path to a career in international education. She never looked back.

“At first I thought I wanted to teach,” she says. “But I realized I wanted to understand the role education plays in a country’s development.”

In a professional journey that has spanned more than three decades, she has lived in Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Malawi, and France; co-created an international education policy program at Harvard University; led teams within organizations ranging from USAID to UNESCO; and helped deploy hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from philanthropies to African universities. 

Driven by her belief in the power of education to transform people, she worked to strengthen the capacity of education professionals around the world, including in conflict zones in Haiti, Afghanistan, and South Sudan.

“Governments change – sometimes governments change radically,” she says. “You’re trying to put in place competencies that can survive.” 

As a member of the Yidan Prize Foundation’s judging panel for the prestigious Yidan Prize for Education Development, Grant Lewis reviews changemakers in educational practice that make quality education more accessible.

“To be exposed to all these innovations that have tremendous impact – it’s so inspiring,” she says.

Despite setbacks in global education equity, including in the U.S., Grant Lewis is optimistic. “It’s been gratifying to see how many countries have really expanded quality educational opportunities,” she says. “Children have a much greater chance of reaching their potential today.”