Fazal Rizvi has been a Professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois since 2001, having previously held academic and administrative appointments at a number of universities in Australia, including as Pro Vice Chancellor (International) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and as the founding Director of the Monash Centre for Research in International Education. From 1993 to 2000, Dr Rizvi edited Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and in 1996 was the President of the Australian Association for Research in Education. His recent books include: Youth Moves: Identities and Education in a Global Era (Routledge 2007), Globalization, the OECD and Education Policy Making (Pergamon 2001) and Education Policy and the Politics of Change (Routledge 1996). His new book, Globalizing Educational Policy, will be published by Routledge in 2008.

Over the past few years, Fazal’s research has been focused on issues of identity, culture and transnational education, but he has recently begun to work on a new project, exploring the ways in which Indian universities are negotiating the pressures of globalisation and the knowledge economy. In 2006, Fazal presented a number of major addresses including the Routledge Lecture at the British Educational Research Association in September, a keynote address at the Alliance of International Educators annual meeting in Shanghai in October, the Radford Address at the Australian Association for Research in Education meeting in November, and an address at the Commonwealth Ministers of Education conference in Cape Town in December. Fazal has served on a number of government bodies, including the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australia Foundation for Culture and the Humanities. He is currently an international panel member on the UK’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE2008). At Illinois, he directs an online program for teachers around the world in Global Studies in Education. (The program's website contains an open access space consisting of resources useful to teachers interested in internationalising their curriculum.)