Benjamin Hedrick was born on the East Coast and after spending elementary school in the state of Washington, he came back to Bethlehem, PA. Certain he was going to be a lawyer, he attended the Penn State Honors Program and prepped to enter law school. He opted to put it on hold and go to Japan to teach English for a year. That wound up being a multi-year teaching and travel experience. He returned to the US to earn a Master's in teaching at Duke University. He taught for a number of years prior to earning a doctorate at Stanford in Math Education. He is now responsible for Advanced Placement test design.