New Education Lead for AI and Engineering Seeks To Help Educators Access the Best of Learning Science

Dan Quine, senior director of AI and engineering for CZI’s education work, is on a mission to bridge cutting-edge AI with school needs — empowering educators and students alike.

Dan Quine, senior director of AI and engineering for our education work, is a lifelong historian with a personal library of more than 25,000 books. Whether it’s published journals or railroad histories, he loves expanding his knowledge, imagination and creativity by escaping into literature. | Photo courtesy of Helen Quine

Dan Quine

Nov 20, 2024 · 7 min read

Education Technology

Introduction Role at CZI Early Career Education as a Foundation for Progress Making Sense of the Complex AI’s Potential in Education Excitement for the Work Growing the Team Staying Close to the Work Join Our Mission

Introduction Tell us a little bit about what you do at CZI. How did you get into the engineering space? How has your journey as a lifelong learner impacted your belief in education as a foundation for societal progress? You’re also an avid railway historian, which is such an interesting passion. How do you see your hobbies and interests influencing the way you solve problems or approach challenges in your work? What’s the one thing you hope AI can accomplish for teachers and students, and why does that resonate with you? What are you looking forward to most as part of the CZI team? How do you see the engineering team growing over the next five years? What does staying close to the work mean to you? Join our mission.

The people closest to our society’s most pressing issues should be the ones to inform solutions and drive change. Our teams partner with diverse educators, families, researchers, scientists, and more to ensure the voices of those most impacted are always heard. So when we say to “stay close to the work” at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we mean it.

In this edition of Stay Close to the Work, get to know Dan Quine, senior director of AI and engineering for our work in education. An avid railway historian, Quine brings with him both extensive AI experience and a passion for education. He is thoroughly excited about developing AI systems that help unlock student potential, ensuring we ground AI systems in learning science and refining it for teaching and learning.

Tell us a little bit about what you do at CZI.

I am the senior director of AI and engineering for education. My role is to explore how we can use AI to support students and teachers in the classroom. I believe in deep partnerships with educators and researchers. We can use learning science to guide the smart systems we build and make them truly effective.

How did you get into the engineering space?

My interest in engineering began when I was 13. With my mother’s very first paycheck, she bought our family a ZX81 — one of the first personal computers. I was immediately hooked. I taught myself to program and later decided to go to university to study computer science. From there, I pursued my Ph.D. in machine learning — now the major field of artificial intelligence — and discovered that I really loved building things, specifically computer programs.

With this newfound passion, I joined a small U.K.-based startup to lead their engineering team, where we were using a new software tool from Apple. It was the ’90s, and the tool was so new that they hadn’t even created instructional manuals for it! I cracked the programming language and asked a colleague on the Apple team there if I could make a manual for it.

I flew to Cupertino, California, for the project. After an incredible trip, we soared over the Golden Gate Bridge while the sun was setting, and it was a truly magnificent scene. I remember thinking, “I have to be here.” And the rest is history!

I believe that there are two big levers in society we can pull on to help build a better future for everyone: health and education. When people are healthy and well-educated, they’re better able to find and foster their passions, which leads to more civic participation, social cohesion and economic growth.”

Dan Quine in a dark sweater and jeans gestures while speaking in a lecture hall.

How has your journey as a lifelong learner impacted your belief in education as a foundation for societal progress?

Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” He was right. Education is the fuel of the long arc of human progress. It allows us to see how the system of society works and improve it. I believe that there are two big levers in society we can pull on to help build a better future for everyone: health and education. When people are healthy and well-educated, they’re better able to find and foster their passions, which leads to more civic participation, social cohesion and economic growth.

You’re also an avid railway historian, which is such an interesting passion. How do you see your hobbies and interests influencing the way you solve problems or approach challenges in your work?

Railways have been around for about two hundred years, so a lot of railway history is within living memory, and the rest is from the era of widespread newspaper coverage and photography. This means you can find lots of sources, though they inevitably only give glimpses of the story. I specialize in narrow gauge railways, which are often only mentioned in passing. So, to figure out the truth, you have to be a detective, piecing together a picture of what happened from fragments of evidence and finding a consistent narrative that makes sense of it all.

This ability to see the whole picture from many different perspectives is critical to what I do at CZI. Much of my job is making sense of the complex pieces involved: the technical foundations we’re building and our work with our many extraordinary partners and users. I need to articulate the full story and help each person on my team see how their work contributes to building something amazing — something that will take multiple years to fully realize.

Dan Quine, wearing a blue work jacket with “GWR” embroidered on the collar, smiles while sitting beside a brass steam engine component.

Quine’s fascination with trains from a young age led to a career in engineering. Here, he is driving Winifred, a steam locomotive from 1885, on the Bala Lake Railway in Wales. | Photo courtesy of Simon Crow

Dan Quine, in a blue work outfit, stands next to a small green locomotive on narrow-gauge tracks, with rustic sheds and tall trees in the background.

Quine’s love of railways and steam engines goes way beyond a hobby. Here, he is pictured with his very own narrow gauge locomotive on the Old Kiln Light Railway in Surrey, south of London. | Photo courtesy of Helen Quine

It’s only fitting that Quine celebrates his birthdays surrounded by his two favorite things: loved ones and trains! In 2018, he celebrated at the Talyllyn Railway in Wales, joined by colleagues from Songkick, where he was CTO from 2011 to 2016. | Photo courtesy of Simon Crow

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What’s the one thing you hope AI can accomplish for teachers and students, and why does that resonate with you?

I have two daughters in high school, and I spend a lot of time talking with them about their education. Specifically their experiences — trying to help them find richer experiences that support and expand what they’re learning in the classroom.

With that, my work at CZI is about creating better tools to help support teachers and school leaders in driving a more responsive, richer experience for students and helping them build their futures. AI has the potential to take on a lot of hugely time-consuming work of planning lessons and tracking student progress. This frees teachers to focus on what they love most: engaging with students to support and accelerate their learning. We know that when teachers focus there, students achieve better academic outcomes and develop the skills critical for lifelong success.

Dan Quine sits at an outdoor picnic table holding a chocolate-covered ice cream bar, with a young child in a blue shirt and pink shoes holding a small ice cream cone, while another child in a red shirt stands nearby eating their own ice cream, with a background of a café and bicycles. — Quine’s two daughters, Lily (left) and Maddy (right), are the inspiration behind his tireless mission to leverage technology to improve the education system. Here, the trio shares an afternoon ice cream on a trip to Dulwich Park in London in 2013. | Photo courtesy of Helen Quine

What are you looking forward to most as part of the CZI team?

We’re on the cusp of unlocking the power of AI to build richer, more engaging learning environments, and that’s really exciting.

For example, there’s so much existing learning science and pedagogical research related to education, and it’s often hard for that to flow into easy implementation in the classroom. With the new developments in AI, we can use technology to make that education research more accessible for all teachers. With the right care and attention, AI-powered tech tools can bridge the gap between that research and application for students and teachers every day.

At the same time, there are valid concerns about the use of AI in schools. It’s important to understand those perspectives and pressure-test assumptions with a wide range of stakeholders. CZI’s innovation studio, Render, gives us a way to co-build with educators throughout the development process to create solutions that truly meet their needs.

How do you see the engineering team growing over the next five years?

One of the great things about CZI as a philanthropy is that we have the opportunity to take a strategic, long-term approach to our vision. We’re focused on making a real, sustainable impact in the communities we serve.

We’re assembling a team of very talented individuals who can go out and seize opportunities. Specifically, we’re thinking a lot about how we can build foundational AI resources that are embedded with learning science research that schools and edtech developers can build on to drive toward educator and student success. That is something that can be really powerful if we get it right.

What does staying close to the work mean to you?

I am here to work with the brilliance of the people we’ve assembled, roll up my sleeves, and think critically about the ideas our team brings to the table. I want to visit schools and talk to educators, district leaders and learning sciences professionals. And ultimately, I want to be involved in diving into the everyday classroom and school challenges that we can begin to solve, and broader needs that we can help address.

For me, staying close to the work is engineering actually getting in and developing solutions with educators, researchers and designers in a very concrete and hands-on way.

Join our mission.

Want to help us build a more inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone? Explore CZI career opportunities now. And, for more Stay Close to the Work content, visit the series page.