Lisa Guernsey

Senior Director of Education Policy and co-founder of the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX), New America

Lisa Guernsey is senior director of education policy (birth through 12th grade), and co-founder of the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) at New America. She also leads the 1939 Library Sit-In Project, a New America initiative that started in 2022.

Guernsey’s writing and editing sits at the intersections of literacy (including digital and media literacy), equity, and the science of learning.

Guernsey founded New America’s Teaching, Learning & Tech team and led the Early Education Initiative, the precursor to today’s Early and Elementary Education Program. In 2017, Lisa co-founded and continues to lead the Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX), a problem-solving platform and fellowship program, with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek at Temple University and Roberta Golinkoff at the University of Delaware.

Guernsey’s career started in journalism. She was a staff writer at the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education and has contributed to national publications including Scientific American, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, Slate, ZERO TO THREE, and USA TODAY.

She is co-author, with Michael H. Levine, of Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens (Jossey-Bass, 2015) and author of Screen Time: How Electronic Media—From Baby Videos to Educational Software—Affects Your Young Child (Basic Books, 2012).