Irwin S. Kirsch is the Director of the Center for Global Assessment at Educational Testing Service. He earned his Ph.D. in Educational Measurement, Reading/Literacy from the University of Delaware in 1982. Since joining ETS in 1984, he directed a number of large-scale assessments in the area of literacy including the National Adult Literacy Survey, and the NAEP Young Adult Literacy Survey. He was also a key person in establishing the International Adult Literacy Surveys and has directed them for ETS since 1993. In 1987, he received the ETS Research Scientist Award for his work in the area of literacy and was named ETS Distinguished Presidential Appointee in 1999.

Kirsch currently manages several large-scale surveys including the Adult Education Program Study with the U.S. Department of Education and the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Program with the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Kirsch also chairs the Reading Expert Group for the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and has been involved with several efforts aimed at defining and measuring information and communication technology (ICT) skills. In this area, he directed an international panel for ETS that defined ICT literacy, designed and conducted a feasibility study on ICT literacy for the OECD, and participates on an OECD advisory panel aimed at establishing a new survey of adult skills for the 21st century.