As the Superintendent-in-Residence, Chris Maher’s primary focus is the Cambiar Catalyst Fellowship, a selective national fellowship for K-12 systems leaders committed to improving outcomes for all students through inclusivity, ingenuity and impact. In addition to that work, Maher leads strategic partnerships with school districts, non-profit organizations, and education entrepreneurs to authentically engage their stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions to entrenched challenges and to identify opportunities to increase their impact.

Maher also coaches superintendents, executive teams, and other systems leaders. He has had the privilege to coach K-12 systems leaders for nearly a decade, with experience coaching leaders from diverse backgrounds and experiences, ranging from superintendents of large urban districts to small suburban and rural districts.

Prior to joining Cambiar, Maher served for four years as Superintendent in Providence, where he restructured the district to increase resources for schools, dramatically reduced out-of-school suspensions, worked with teachers to increase the use of high-quality instructional materials, decreased the number of schools identified as low-performing, partnered with student leadership to implement policy changes, created policies that protect transgender students and staff, increased mental health support for students, and led the advocacy that provided state funding for multilingual learners for the first time in the state’s history.

Maher also served as the President of Mass Insight Education, a non-profit organization that works nationally on school improvement and district transformation. In that role, he worked closely with Superintendents, School Boards, and their teams to improve academic outcomes by creating better conditions for success in the lowest-performing schools and neighborhoods within districts.

Maher has worked in a number of different roles in his career in education, as a teacher, principal, district administrator, public school advocate, and in other leadership capacities. He has worked with local school districts and state agencies throughout the country to identify sustainable and scalable solutions to improve outcomes for all students.

Maher resides in Providence with his wife and three children, all of whom attend or have graduated from Providence public schools.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from New York University and a Graduate Certificate in K-12 Supervision and Administration from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from the College of Wooster in Ohio. Maher has participated in the Broad Academy, Harvard University's Public Education Leadership Program, Harvard University's By All Means Initiative, the College Board's National Superintendent's Advisory Committee, and other educational leadership roles.