Charles J. Russo, M. Div., J.D., Ed. D., is the Joseph Panzer Chair in Education in the School of Education and Health Sciences, Director of its Ph.D. Program, and Research Professor of Law in the School of Law at the University of Dayton. The 1998-99 President of the Education Law Association, 2002 recipient of its McGhehey (Achievement) Award, 2021 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Special Interest Group on Religion & Education, and 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the South African Education Law Association, he authored or co-authored more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals; authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 75 books, and has almost 1,200 publications. Dr. Russo also has spoken extensively on issues in Education Law in thirty-four of the United States and thirty-one other Nations. In addition, he edits two journals and serves on more than a dozen editorial boards.

Along with having spoken in thirty-four states and thirty-one nations outside of the United States on all six inhabited continents, Russo taught summer courses in England, Spain, and Thailand. Internationally, he serves or has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame of Australia Faculty of Law in Sydney, Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and the University of Newcastle, Australia; the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; South East European University, Macedonia; the Potchefstroom and Mafeking Campuses of Northwest University, Potchefstroom, South Africa; the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; Yeditepe University, Istanbul Turkey; Inner Mongolia University for the Nationalities, Tongliao, Inner Mongolia; and Peking University in Beijing, China. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Capital Normal University in Beijing.

Before joining the Faculty at the University of Dayton as Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Administration in July 1996, Dr. Russo taught at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, from August 1992 to July 1996 and at Fordham University in his native New York City from September 1989 to July 1992. He taught high school for eight and one half-years, both prior to and after graduation from law school. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical Civilization (1972), Juris Doctor Degree (1983), and Doctor of Education degrees in Educational Administration and Supervision (1989) from St, John’s University in New York City. He received a Master of Divinity degree from the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, New York (1978). He received a Ph.D. Honoris Causa from Potchefstroom University, now the Potchefstroom Campus of Northwest University, in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in May 2004, for his contributions to the field of Education Law.