Biography

Maurice Ashley, an International Grandmaster of Chess, is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center working with the Mindsport Research Network to research and develop curricula centering on how games can be used to effectively impact subject learning online, in classrooms, and in libraries around the world. Ashley is a national championship coach and author of Chess for Success, a book about the benefits of chess for young people. He served as commentator for the historic Man vs. Machine matches between former world champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue that marked the first time a computer chess engine defeated a world champion in a sanctioned match. He was also ESPN's commentator for other Man vs. Machine matches as well as commentator for various US and world championship events. Through his company, Ashley-Parr LLC, Ashley designed a chess curriculum currently used in a study funded by the Department of Education to explore the effects of chess on executive functioning in 4th and 5th graders. Ashley was named 2003 Grandmaster of the Year by the US Chess Federation and has won many awards for his work bringing chess to underserved communities.