Dr. Roger Schank was the founder of the renowned Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, where he is John P. Evans Professor Emeritus in Computer Science, Education and Psychology. Prior to joining Northwestern, he was Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University and Director of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Project. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the University of Paris VII, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Linguistics at Stanford University, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Semantics and Cognition in Switzerland. In addition, Dr. Schank served as the Distinguished Career Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a fellow of the AAAI and was founder of the Cognitive Science Society and co-founder of The Journal of Cognitive Science. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas.

In 1994, Dr. Schank founded Cognitive Arts Corporation, a company that designs and builds high quality multimedia simulations for use in corporate training and for online university-level courses. Cognitive Arts has partnered extensively with Columbia University.

In 2002 he founded Socratic Arts, a company devoted to making high-quality e-learning affordable for both businesses and schools.

At BES La Salle, Dr. Schank directs the Institute for Learning Sciences (ILS) and the International Performance Standards Certification Institute (IPSCI). He leads a consortium of education experts from around the world who meet regularly at La Salle to discuss how to change education, implement action plans in various specialties, and coordinate global resources. In addition, Dr. Schank directs the Virtual PhD Program at La Salle and supervises students. He also continues to direct a wide variety of research projects across the learning sciences. 

A revolutionary in the field of education, Dr. Schank is the author of more than 20 books on learning, language, artificial intelligence, education, memory, reading, e-learning, and story telling. The most recent are Virtual Learning, Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a Smarter Kid by Breaking All the Rules, Scrooge meets Dick and Jane, Engines for Education, and Designing World Class E-Learning.