With more than 30 years of early years leadership, Dr. Dan Wuori is the Founder and President of Early Childhood Policy Solutions, a bipartisan public policy consultancy focused on the needs of young children, their families, and the early years professionals who serve them. He serves concurrently as a Strategic Advisor on Early Childhood to the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation. In both roles – and in his prior position as the founding Director of Early Childhood at The Hunt Institute in Cary, North Carolina – Dr. Wuori works alongside governors and state legislators to improve early years policy across the United States. But to parents the world over, Dan is known not for his policy work, but for his innovative use of social media to educate about infants and toddlers – with more than 300,000 followers tuning in to his daily video child development lessons across platforms. This work was recently profiled in The New York Times, which called his X (Twitter) account “a font of delight and edification…educational, but also – put simply – awwwww.” His new book The Daycare Myth: What We Get Wrong About Early Care and Education (and What We Should Do About It) was released in September 2024. Upon its announcement, the book – which explores the costly disconnect between what we know and what we do when it comes to the needs of young children – spent more than a week at the top of Amazon’s education best sellers list. It is now in its seventh printing. Dan is currently at work on a second book, Wonderment: Our First Three Years, which was recently acquired by Ballantine Books (a division of Penguin-Random House) for publication in early 2027.
Writer, Speaker, Advisor
An accomplished writer, public speaker, and policy advisor to the nation’s governors, state lawmakers and other senior state elected and administrative officials, Dr. Wuori serves currently as the Founder and President of Early Childhood Policy Solutions (a public policy consultancy focused on children and families) and Strategic Advisor on Early Childhood at the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation. He joined The Hunt Institute as its founding Director of Early Learning in January of 2019, and served as Senior Director from February 2021-November 2023, helping to attract more than $10 million in philanthropic and fee-for-service work to The Institute. A former kindergarten teacher and school district administrator, Dr. Wuori served as Deputy Director of South Carolina First Steps to School Readiness – the state’s comprehensive, public-private early learning initiative – from 2005-2018. In this role he worked alongside elected leaders to develop significant, bipartisan support for early childhood education and oversaw system innovations including the delivery of public prekindergarten in private, community- and faith-based preschools, improvements to the state’s IDEA Part C early intervention system, the creation of statewide program accountability standards, and the expansion of evidence-based home visiting programs. He lives in Columbia, South Carolina with his wife and young adult children.