Dr. Robert S. Harvey is an educator, social impact strategist, and school systems-leader pursuing a vision of justice, equity, and love. He is the Managing Director of Alma—a social impact firm committed to racial, economic, and education justice through teaching and learning, leadership, and grantmaking.

He was most recently the President and Co-CEO of FoodCorps, a national justice organization at the intersection of education, food, and health systems committed to all our nation's public-school students. He also holds a visiting professorship in the practice of public leadership with a dual appointment in education; and is an Aspen Health Fellow and Pahara Fellow.

Prior to FoodCorps, he served as Superintendent of East Harlem Scholars Academies, a network of public charter schools and Chief Academic Officer of ETHP, in New York City. Before that, Dr. Harvey served as chief operating officer of Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically Black college in Louisville, and as an elementary school leader in Memphis. Committing his life to learning, he holds a doctorate in public leadership from Memphis Theological Seminary, a master of theological studies from Harvard University, and a bachelor of arts from Bryant University. He also has completed a post-doc in education leadership and the Superintendent’s Institute at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

His written work has appeared in Education Post, Citizen Education, TheGrio, EdWeek, Blavity, Chalkbeat, Education Dive, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and multiple academic journals and publications focused on race, pedagogy, curriculum and instruction, and intersectional justice for the goal of equitable and inclusive classrooms and communities. He is the author of two education texts: Abolitionist Leadership in Schools: Undoing Systemic Injustice through Communally Consciousness Education (Routledge, 2021); and Teaching as Protest: Emancipating Classrooms through Racial Consciousness (Routledge, 2022), which frames philosophical and practical pedagogy that centers freeing teaching and learning spaces for students and teachers.

He serves as chair of The Current Project Board of Directors, is a member of the St. Louis Dance Theatre Board of Directors, and the Governance Committee of the St. Louis Public Schools Foundation Board.