Michael John Scriven (; born 1928) is a British-born Australian polymath and academic philosopher, best known for his contributions to the theory and practice of evaluation. Biography Scriven was born in the UK and grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He holds BSc (1948) and MS (1950) degrees in mathematics from the University of Melbourne, where he was in residence at Trinity College from 1946, winning an entrance scholarship. He then completed a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford (1956). Scriven is a past president of the American Educational Research Association and the American Evaluation Association. He is also an editor and co-founder of the Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation. He is currently a distinguished professor at Claremont Graduate University in California. He has spent most of his career in the United States. He became a full Professor at the age of 32. His major appointments were: Swarthmore College (Assistant Professor, 1956–60) Indiana University (Professor of Philosophy, 1960-1966) University of California, Berkeley (Professor of Philosophy and later of Education 1966–78) University of San Francisco (Professor, 1978–82) University of Western Australia (Professor of Education 1982–89) Pacific Graduate School of Psychology (1989-1992) Western Michigan University (1994-5, 2004–07) Claremont Graduate University (1997–2002 and 2007-) University of Auckland (Professor of Evaluation 2003-4) Scholarly contributions Scriven has made significant contributions in the fields of philosophy, psychology, critical thinking, mathematics, and, most notably, evaluation theory and the establishment of evaluation as a transdiscipline. Scriven's work in education has influenced the work of many scholars, including that of Robert E. Stake, Ernest R. House, Benjamin Bloom, and Gene V Glass. He has produced over 400 scholarly publications and has served on the editorial review boards of 42 journals. Awards Scriven has been awarded numerous awards, including: Lazarfeld Prize, awarded by the American Evaluation Association for outstanding research contributions to the field of evaluation (1986) Donald Campbell Award of the Policy Studies Association (citation reads "...as an outstanding methodological innovator in public policy studies") (1996) Wilbert J. McKeachie award for lifetime contribution to the study of faculty evaluation and development, awarded by the Special Interest Group on Faculty Evaluation and Development of the American Educational Research Association (1996+) Honorary Fellow of the American Education Research Association (AERA) for lifetime contributions to education research (1996+) Jason Millman award for lifetime contribution to evaluation, awarded by CREATE (Coalition for Research and Evaluation on Teacher Education) (1996+) Robert Ingle award for