Diana Hess

Co-Creator

Dr. Diana Hess is dean emerita of the UW–Madison School of Education and an elected member of the National Academy of Education. Hess was the co-creator of the Deliberation Dinners and the co-founder and Principal Investigator of The Discussion Project.

Hess served as the dean of the UW-Madison School of Education from 2015-2024 and was a professor of social studies education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at UW-Madison from 1999-2025.

Hess is a leading expert in civic education, discussion, and the teaching of controversial political, constitutional, and legal issues. She wrote “Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion,” which won the Exemplary Research Award from the National Council for Social Studies in 2009 and “The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education,” co-authored with Paula McAvoy, which won the American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Book Award in 2016 and the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 2017.

Retired from the UW–Madison in September 2025, Hess is currently writing a book with Lynn Glueck on The Discussion Project and Deliberation Dinners.