John T. Guthrie is the Jean Mullan Professor of Literacy Emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received the PhD. in 1998 from the University of Illinois and was privileged to be advised and mentored by Richard C. Anderson. He began his career at Johns Hopkins University, where he founded the Kennedy School for children with reading disabilities. In 1974, he became the Research Director for the International Reading Association where he endeavored to provide spaces for dialogue and dissemination of research to the membership. In 1984, he was appointed Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland College Park where he served as the College Research Bureau Director in addition to teaching.

In 1992-1997, he was the Co- Director of the National Reading Research Center, were he studied motivations, engagement, cognitive strategies and instructional programs at all school levels. His works on reading motivation and engagement have been published in multiple outlets including the Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Educational Psychology, and the Elementary School Journal. He served on the panel for designing and implementing the measurement of engagement, motivation and instruction in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2004-2009. He served on the panel for the NAEP 2026. He is a recipient of the Oscar Causey Award for Outstanding Reading Research, a member of the International Reading Association Hall of Fame, and the 2004 recipient of the University of Maryland System Regents Award for scholarship/creative activity. In 2017 he received the International Literacy Association William S. Gray Citation of Merit Award.