Marc Chun, PhD, is a researcher, educator, and experience designer who believes the best solutions are often hiding in plain sight. Trained in sociology and education, he earned his PhD from Stanford, where he studied how people solve complex problems in unexpected ways—especially when “best practices” fall flat. While working as a designer at Stanford’s d.school, he founded and led the Positive Deviance Project, where he brought a human-centered approach to uncovering what actually drives impact (versus what worked somewhere else or just looks good on a slide deck).

With a background in measurement and evaluation, he has spent over a decade thinking about scale and scaled impact through an equity lens—ensuring solutions don’t just spread widely, but work for the people who need them most. He is particularly interested in helping those who have tried a “proven” strategy only to watch it crash and burn, working with teams to spot hidden bright spots, reverse-engineer success, and rethink how change actually happens.

His interest in positive deviance and education has taken him from classrooms to nonprofits to think tanks, always with a focus on equity—ensuring that the best ideas aren’t just effective but also accessible and just. When he designs learning experiences, he uses real-world issues, hands-on discovery, storytelling, and if the stars align, at least a few moments of “Wait, why did we ever think that was a good idea?” laughter along the way.