Professor Crain Soudien is the Chief Executive Officer of the Human Sciences Research Council, effective 1 September 2015. He is formerly a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cape Town. He is a joint professor in Education and African Studies. He has published over 180 articles, reviews, reports, and book chapters in the areas of social difference, culture, education policy, comparative education, educational change, public history and popular culture. He was educated at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and holds a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is involved in a number of local, national and international social and cultural organizations and is the Chairperson of the Independent Examinations Board, the former Chairperson of the District Six Museum Foundation, a former President of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies and had been the chair of the Ministerial Committee on Transformation in Higher Education and is currently the chair of the Ministerial Committee to evaluate textbooks for discrimination. He is a fellow of a number of local and international academies and serves on the boards of a number of cultural, heritage, education and civil society structures.
