Monthly Archives: April 2026

Dan Alig on AI and Education – TSC076



Dan Alig is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Harvard-Westlake, having arrived in 2024 after serving as CIO for more than a decade at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode, Dan speaks to how Harvard-Westlake and other schools are confronting the emergence of AI—from keeping up with daily breakthroughs in AI capability, to how teachers are adjusting to new methods of instruction and assessment, to how some adolescents are using AI for companionship. Dan also speaks to how schools like Wharton and Harvard-Westlake are uniquely suited to take leadership in this space. One big example—thanks to Dan’s leadership, last year Harvard-Westlake partnered with OpenAI to became the first independent school in the world to create an individual license for ChatGPT. This has enabled Dan and his team to begin to determine how HW enters the AI space skillfully and thoughtfully, with the goal of enhancing student learning with humans and humanity at the center. Dan references his parents, as well as Deirdre Woods at Wharton, as profound influences on his life and career.