Prof Tan received his BSc and MEd from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and his PhD from Nanyang Technological University. He attended the Stanford-NUS Management Development Program in 1998 and the Harvard Management Development Program in 2004.Professor Tan was previously Dean of Teacher Education at NIE where he spearheaded the Teacher Education for the 21st Century (TE21) initiative as a major milestone innovation for teacher education both nationally and internationally. He also heads the Singapore team for the Global Education Innovation Initiative (GEII) helmed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also convener of the World Educational Research Association (WERA) International Research Network on Teacher Education. Professor Tan was President of the Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS, 2005-2008) and President of the Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA, 2008-2010). He was also the Vice-President (Asia and Pacific Rim) of the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology (IACEP, 2008-2011). He is Editor-in-Chief of the Educational Research for Policy & Practice (ERPP) journal published by Springer. He is also the Lead Editor of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education (APJE) published by Routledge. Concurrently, he is on the board of directors for NIE International (NIEI) and also for the Singapore Centre for Chinese Language (SCCL).