Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass Center for Education, Vice President, Senior Fellow, and Director

Sonja Brookins Santelises, Ed.D.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises as Vice President, Senior Fellow, and Director of the Richard Haass Center for Education at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), effective September 2026. 

Established in June 2025, the Richard Haass Center for Education will centralize and expand the reach of CFR’s educational work, enhancing CFR Education’s creation of best-in-class educational resources that are widely and readily available to educators and learners in secondary and postsecondary classrooms across the country. Importantly, in this fraught political moment, the center will also equip educators to teach their students about global affairs through civil discourse and respectful dialogue.   

A nationally recognized leader and educator, Dr. Santelises has spent her career advancing educational opportunities and championing academic excellence for all young people. Most recently, Dr. Santelises served for a decade as CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, becoming the district’s longest-serving leader since 1946. During her tenure, she led one of the nation’s largest and most complex school systems, overseeing a $1.9 billion annual budget while building strategic partnerships with national philanthropic and civic organizations to expand opportunities for students. The district reduced the number of low-performing schools, increased students’ access to high-quality learning resources, and secured significant investments in school infrastructure. Dr. Santelises also serves as the superintendent in residence at the Yale School of Management’s Broad Center, where she leads content facilitation for the Fellowship for Public Education Leadership cohort. 

Dr. Santelises was named the Maryland Superintendent of the Year by the Public School Superintendents’ Association of Maryland and received the John Hope Alumni Award from Brown University. She was a finalist for the School Superintendents Association’s 2026 Superintendent of the Year Award and named one of Maryland’s Most Admired CEOs by the Maryland Daily Record. Dr. Santelises was the chair of the Council of the Great City Schools, which gathers eighty-two of the United States’ largest urban public school systems in a coalition dedicated to the improvement of education for children in urban schools.

Sean Farrell and Katie Rockman led this search with Tatiana Oberkoetter and Drew Chang.