Michael Ulku-Steiner

Michael Ulku-Steiner serves as Head of School at Durham Academy in North Carolina, where he began in 1992 as an English and Spanish teacher, advisor, basketball coach and baseball coach. In the years since, he has taught a variety of subjects (including 20th Century Poetry, IB Theory of Knowledge, and a service-learning course in Advanced Spanish) and spent eight years serving as Dean of Students and Headmaster at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS Lugano). One burning question has motivated Michael’s work for three decades: how can schools and communities best help children grow into their most compassionate, capable, and courageous selves? Michael’s son (a college senior), daughter (a college sophomore) and wife (a developmental psychologist) have offered some of the best answers so far.

Education