BIOGRAPHY
LEFT: Howard (lying down on the job in 1992) with Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? cast members. MIDDLE: In SUNY Geneseo classroom, before a speech. RIGHT: In Hong Kong, recording one of the first Kids on Earth videos.
HOWARD BLUMENTHAL is a Senior Scholar with The University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center. Previously, he was a senior executive with several large media companies, head of an innovative nonprofit, an award-winning television producer, a syndicated journalist, and an author.
Howard’s current area of interest is the intersection of human progress, future-mindedness, technology, media, and learning. His current projects include Kids on Earth, featuring hundreds of interviews with children and teenagers around the world. Its goal is to foster a connected society where children and teenagers can make friends, study, and communicate with peers around the globe. He was the host and co-executive producer of Reinventing School, an interview series about learning and education in the 2020s featuring education professionals and students.
Previously, Howard co-created and produced the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning PBS children’s series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He has developed and produced programs for Nickelodeon, MTV, Food Network, History Channel, and other networks. His documentary work includes The Boys of Summer, about the Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers, and On the Other Side of the Fence, winner of a Gold Medal from the New York International Film Festivals and a special United Nations Award for Public Service. He has built and led several television production companies, and a software development firm.
As a journalist, Howard wrote a popular weekly column for 100+ newspapers distributed by The New York Times Syndicate and United Features, and many magazine articles. He has written 25 books about media, creativity, U.S. history, popular culture, marketing, business, music, and time travel. He has been a guest on more than 500 television and radio programs.
As an executive, he has served as a Senior Vice President for divisions of Hearst and Bertelsmann; CDNow (NASDAQ); and as CEO of Independence Public Media; Executive Director of the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority; and President of the NJN Foundation. Earlier, he was head of marketing for a division of Warner Communications, and lead the team that started MTV. He has also worked with Merriam-Webster, Atari, General Electric, American Express, Visit Denmark, HarperCollins, WILEY, Warner Publishing, Ten Speed Press, The Learning Company, Parker Brothers, LEGO, Philips (consumer electronics), City Year, GBH, WNET, WQED (public media), NHK (Japanese television), France 24, several children’s software, videogame and toy/game companies, and several international start-ups. Howard is the co-founder of The National Archives of Game Show History at The Strong National Museum of Play, and its co-Executive Producer, which opens a major permanent exhibit in 2027.
SCHOLAR
As Executive Director of the new 21st Century Learning Project at The University of Virginia’s School of Education and Human Development, the lab took a close look at learning from the perspective of 1.5 billion individual K-12 students worldwide. Working directly with students all over the world, we developed ideas about how they learn, how they learn, why they learn, what they learn, and how they prepare for complexity and change throughout this global century. Working across disciplines, in the academy and the community, largely with children, teenagers and their teachers, this work has resulted in a new book, currently entitled Kids on Earth: The Power & Potential of 5 Billion Minds, to be published by Harvard Education Press in the third quarter of 2025.
Engagement with higher education with The University of Pennsylvania restarted in 2017. Initially, The Annenberg School for Communication allowed a pivot from a long-time study of television and new media to work with and for children and teenagers. As Senior Scholar at The Positive Psychology Center, also part of UPenn, areas of study include connecting ideas about identity, gender, family, community, school, learning, media, technology, thinking clearly, population patterns, economics, overcoming obstacles, and more.
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In addition, the work has extended to several academic groups that address learning and community. These include The Core Advisory Group for Civic Imagination Project at The University of Southern California (USC); UNESCO MILA Cities Innovation Group; and The Jena Declaration as a member of the Advisory Board for UNESCO-Chair on Global Understanding for Sustainability, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Germany. In 2020, he was added Fulbright Specialist Roster, ready to travel and work with teachers and students outside the U.S. Previous roles include member of the faculty at The New School for Social Research in New York City. Master classes at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania concerned the interaction of media and learning, and at Lehigh University, the focus was Global Citizenship & Storytelling for the Global Studies program. On-campus lecture invitations began with MIT, and continued with NYU, Ashoka University in India, USP (University of São Paolo) in Brazil, Uppsala University in Sweden, UNA (national public university) in Paraguay, and ORT University in Uruguay, and more.
