Adversity, Agency, and AI: Dr. Tim Stuart on the Future of Learning

In this episode of Evolution Stories, Christian Talbot talks with Dr. Timothy S. Stuart, a global education leader whose career has spanned more than 30 years across schools, systems, and continents. Tim currently serves as Director of Leadership Recruitment and Global Partnerships at Search Associates and previously worked as a Regional Education Officer for the U.S. Department of State, supporting American-style international schools around the world. Before that, he spent five years as Head of School at the International Community School of Addis Ababa and held leadership roles at Singapore American School, including Executive Director of Strategic Programs and High School Principal. He also served as High School Principal at Jakarta Intercultural School.

Tim shares his powerful personal story of returning to the United States as a French-educated teenager, being misdiagnosed, and placed in special education. That early experience shaped everything that followed, influencing his beliefs about inclusion, safeguarding, and the centrality of human relationships in learning. He and Christian explore the challenges of transforming elite school cultures, the leadership lessons that emerge from failure, and the delicate balance between confidence and humility.

They also discuss how AI may finally help schools personalize learning at scale and why sustainable change rests on systems, not slogans.