Chris Dede is a full professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dede has a joint appointment in the Graduate School of Education and the School of Information Technology and Engineering. I have heard that he has been hired as a tenured faculty member at Harvard University. Dede is currently the Director, Center of Interactive Educational Technology, at George Mason University

Dede’s research interests include technology forecasting and assessment, emerging technologies for learning, leadership in educational innovation, and virtual reality. The National Science Foundation has funded Dede’s research to develop educational environments based on virtual reality. Dede has recently served as Senior Program Director at the National Science Foundation assisting in the guidance of a new $25-30m funding program. Dede also has a project funded by the Joyce Foundation to aid urban school districts in using technology as well as from the Department of Education to create and assess technology-based science education materials for learning disabled secondary students.

Dede has written prolifically on Educational technologies and virtual reality and has published his testimony to Congress regarding the future of learning technologies and 21st century learning. Much of Dede’s research has been for the military (Navy, NASA, and Air Force).

Dede’s article, The Evolution of Learning Devices: Smart Objects, Information infrastructures, and Shared Synthedtic Environments, is a study on the evolution of technology in the way we teach and learn since the industrial revolution. thispaper was one of a series of “white papers” presented to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology.