Professor Mark Brennan

Dr. Mark Brennan is the UNESCO Chair on Global Citizenship Education for Sustainable Peace through Youth and Community Engagement and Professor of Leadership and Community Development at the Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Brennan’s teaching, research, writing, and program development concentrate on the role of civic engagement, community, and leadership development in the youth and community development process. His work has also increasingly focused on the role of citizens across the lifespan as active contributors to peace building, social justice, and functioning societies.  Dr. Brennan was a Fulbright Specialist in 2012 and a Fulbright Scholar in 2021/22. 

Dr. Brennan has nearly 30 years of experience in designing, conducting, and analyzing social science research related to community and youth development. This work has involved extensive comparative research throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia and Central America. He is co-founder of the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Children, Youth, and Community.  All research outputs have been translated into teaching and outreach curriculum to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to a wider international audience, as well as published in nearly 200 peer reviewed journal articles, UN publications and Extension/Outreach publications. 

All research outputs have been translated into teaching and outreach curriculum to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to a wider international audience, as well as published in over one hundred peer reviewed journals and publications.  His recent books include Theory, Practice, and Community Development (2013), Community Leadership Development:  A Compendium of Theory, Research, and Application (2013), Culture, Community and Development (2021), and Creating Caring Communities to Overcome Times of Crisis (2022).

Most importantly, he has been very active in student mentorship. At the graduate level, he has served on over 100 graduate student committees.