Executive Director

The Academy for Teachers has named Dr. Tom Liam Lynch as its next President, effective July 1, 2025.

For more than twenty years, Dr. Lynch has served New York City communities in varied and increasingly senior leadership roles, including as a classroom teacher, district official, education professor, and non-profit leader. His career has been defined by using innovation to improve education.

Dr. Lynch’s unique blend of impactful vision, wide-ranging leadership experience, and operational smarts has made him a dynamic force in K-12 education. In the classroom, he recorded literary hip-hop albums with students. In the central offices of the nation’s largest school system, Dr. Lynch led the implementation of a first-of-its-kind $50 million citywide online learning program and $6.8 million curricular library for 75,000 teachers. In academia, he pioneered research bridging computer science and English Language Arts, earning him the National Technology Leadership Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. During COVID-19, he led the popular website InsideSchools, responding to the emergency needs of thousands of New York City families by launching online communities, courses, and podcasts. As Vice President of Education Equity at United Way of New York City, he led programs designed to leverage innovation to expand equity, including building dozens of community libraries across the city and launching a fellowship for English teachers to integrate computer science into their classrooms.

Dr. Lynch received his Doctor of Education and Master of Arts from Columbia University, Teachers College, and his Bachelor of Arts from Fordham University at Lincoln Center.

Jaime Morgen and Katie Rockman led this search with Alexis Ditaway and Harley Bartles.