Executive Director

James H. Wendorf is executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), which seeks to ensure that the nation's 15 million children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities have every opportunity to succeed in school, work and life. He directs NCLD's efforts to provide essential information to parents, professionals and individuals with learning disabilities; to develop and deliver research-based programs that foster effective learning; and to advocate for policies that protect and strengthen educational rights and opportunities. NCLD's new initiative promoting the implementation of Response to Intervention strategies in schools nationwide — the RTI Action Network — is the largest single program in this effort.

For the past two decades, Mr. Wendorf has worked in the not-for-profit sector to build national and international partnerships supporting learning and literacy programs. Prior to joining NCLD in 1999, Mr. Wendorf served as vice president and chief operating officer of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc., the nation's largest nonprofit children's literacy organization, based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Wendorf currently serves on the advisory board of the National Center on Educational Outcomes, National Association for the Education of African American Children with Learning Disabilities, the Education Policy and Leadership Center (Southern Methodist University) and previously, with a variety of civic and education organizations. He is frequently called upon by the news media to comment on policies and programs affecting individuals with learning disabilities. Mr. Wendorf earned a B.A. degree from Yale College, and graduate degrees in English Language and Literature from the University of Cambridge and Cornell University.