Board of Directors

Dan Speak

Ph.D. University of California, Riverside, M.A. Claremont Graduate University, B.A. Biola University

Dan is a Professor at Loyola Marymount University where he teaches in the Department of Philosophy and serves as the Director of the Department’s Graduate Program. His research and teaching are focused on questions about human free will, moral responsibility, knowledge, and God. He is the author of The Problem of Evil (Polity Press, 2014), the co-editor of Free Will and Theism (Oxford University Press, 2016), and has published a number of professional articles appearing in edited collections and academic journals.

As a teacher and scholar, he has been deeply influenced by the virtue epistemology that provides the core vision for IVA. In fact, he contributed editorial work to Linda Zagzebski’s groundbreaking book, Virtues of the Mind, and thereby very nearly became a virtue epistemologist himself. In his teaching, then, he seeks to inspire both undergraduate and graduate students to explore the fundamental questions of human existence with a view to cultivating traits of moral and intellectual excellence. He aims to bring a philosopher’s curiosity to the board’s deliberations. 

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to serve on the board for IVA. The school’s track-record already speaks for itself as one of the most innovative and effective charter schools in the nation. It is also clear that the leadership is committed to ongoing improvement and creative extension of its primary purposes. The students at IVA are receiving a remarkable education that will profoundly serve them all their lives. Making a small contribution to this outcome is, in fact, a sincere honor.”