Ryan Irvan designs curriculum and learning experiences. His doctoral research at the University of Cambridge explored how students find their own voice and dialogue in online learning, work he calls creating the context for kairos, the right moment for a student's own thinking to surface. His MPhil in Psychology and Education, also at Cambridge, examined how virtual work-based projects could deepen secondary students' engagement with the world of work, and his MA in Educational Leadership, from San Diego State University, focused on technology integration in schools.

He is a qualified teacher in the UK, with lifetime teaching credentials in California, USA. Ryan set up and ran a makerspace at a middle school in San Diego, teaching Gateway to Technology and English. He has worked in schools in the UK, served as a school governor and safeguarding lead, and contributed to education technology research across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. More recently, his focus has shifted to designing curriculum for apprenticeship programmes in automation and AI. He loves the outdoors, and with his wife and children he makes, breaks, and fixes things, trains chickens, and walks their black lab, Purdy.