Meet Our Speakers

Alphabetical by Last Name:  A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

• Tony Alleyne (M.A. ’10) | 2019 Early Career Award Recipient
  Tony Alleyne is the founder and executive director of the Delaware College Scholars Program (DCS), a leading seven-year college preparation/college persistence program for high-achieving under-resourced students. To date, 94 percent of Delaware College Scholars have gone on to four-year institutions of higher learning. Originally from Brooklyn, he attended public schools in New York City until joining Prep for Prep’s Prep 9, which opened doors to the opportunity to graduate cum laude from St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, DE.
• Bruce Ballard (Ed.D. 94) | 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
  Bruce Ballard (Ed.D. ’94) has taught reading, writing, poetry, second languages and pedagogy for 45 years. He has worked with pre-school students up through senior citizens, in the United States and overseas. He has run teacher-training projects in eight countries, taught Fortune 100 business executives to write clearly, and instructed graduate students in education. After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2012, he created a website, www.parkingsuns.com, which promotes a positive “enriched environment” for people living with PD and their families. The World Parkinson Coalition selected Ballard’s site as a leading WPC Blog for the global Parkinson’s community.
• Kim Baranowski (Ph.D. ’14) | 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
  Kim Baranowski (Ph.D. ’14) is a Lecturer in TC's Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology. She works to advance human rights through advocacy, training, and research. Baranowski educates clinical professionals, students, and the broader community about the impact of persecution on mental health. She conducts pro bono trauma-informed forensic psychological evaluations of asylum seekers and has trained over 200 clinical practitioners to document the mental health correlates of torture. In 2018, she was awarded the American Psychological Association Citizen Psychologist Presidential Citation for her sustained commitment to leadership in advocacy and supporting survivors of human rights violations.
• Sayu Bhojwani (Ph.D. ‘14) | President & Founder, New American Leaders and Author of People Like Us: The New Wave of Candidates Knocking on Democracy’s Door
• Jayne Brownell (Ed.D. ‘02) | Vice President for Student Life at Miami University
  Jayne Brownell is the Vice President for Student Life at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Jayne joined Miami in March 2014 after serving as the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at Hofstra University in New York from 2006-2014. Jayne has worked in a range of areas in student affairs, including academic advising, first-year programs, residence life, assessment, leadership development, and peer education. She earned her undergraduate degree at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and her master’s and doctoral degrees in student affairs and higher education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
• Warner Burke | Edward Lee Thorndike Professorship of Psychology & Education, Teachers College
• Yoo Kyung Chang | Lecturer, Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Yoo Kyung Chang is a lecturer at the program of Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design, Teachers College. Her research and professional expertise lies in the design and development of technology to support and understand learning and human development. Her current research focuses on the cognitive, affective, and metacognitive implications of data-driven design in diverse context ranging from online learning to media consumption behavior.
Previously, Yoo Kyung Chang engaged in the design and research of playful science learning at New York Hall of Science, interactive simulation-based science learning, and formal and informal medical education.
• Michelle Ciulla-Lipkin | Executive Director of National Association for Media Literacy Education
  Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, the Executive Director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, has helped NAMLE grow to be the preeminent media literacy education association in the U.S. She launched the first ever Media Literacy Week in the U.S., developed strategic partnerships with companies such as Trend Micro, Nickelodeon, and Twitter, and restructured the governance and membership of the organization. She has also four national conferences and done countless appearances at conferences and in the media regarding media literacy. Michelle has advocated for media literacy through CNN, PBS News Hour, NPR, The New York Times, and Al Jazeera English.
• Danielle Coon | Associate Director of MD-ICCCR, Teachers College
  Danielle Coon joined the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution as the Associate Director in September 2015. Danielle previously worked with a non-profit social service agency in New York City managing apartment buildings for low-income senior citizens and focused on housing issues in Ecuador with Habitat for Humanity through advocacy, education programs and by leading volunteer groups to multiple home-building worksites. Immediately prior to joining the MD-ICCCR, she was the director of Project COMMON BOND, a program of Tuesday’s Children, which connected teens who lost parents in the events of September 11, 2001 with international youth who have lost family members due to terrorism, violent extremism or war.
  Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution
• Dahlia Hamza Constantine (M.A. '02) | Doctoral Scholar, Teachers College
• Fanshen Cox (M.A. ’97) | 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
  Fanshen Cox (M.A. ’97, TESOL) is an award-winning actress, producer, and educator, who is currently touring the one-woman show she wrote and performs in: One Drop of Love. One Drop travels near and far, in the past and present to explore history, family, race, class, justice, and love. It is a multimedia one-woman show exploring the intersections of race, class, and gender in search of truth, justice, and LOVE. Cox has been featured in the New York Times and on NPR as a spokesperson on using the arts to explore racial identity. Fanshen is also the co-author of the Inclusion Rider which was announced by Frances McDormand at the 2018 Oscar Awards.
• Juliane Dressner | Director and Producer of Personal Statement
  Juliane Dressner is a director, producer and cinematographer who makes character based films that often focus on young people who are overcoming challenging circumstances. Her films have shed light on economic and racial justice issues in education and the criminal justice system (one example is THE SCARS OF STOP-AND-FRISK, which was published as an Op-Doc by The New York Times). She won the National Magazine Award for video for her short film, AN EDUCATION, which was published by The New York Times magazine. Her other short films have been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, New York magazine, and Buzzfeed. PERSONAL STATEMENT is her first feature-length documentary.
  
• David Getz (M.A. '84) | Principal, East Side Middle School
  David Getz, beginning his 17th year as the principal of East Side Middle School, is also the teacher/ facilitator of the Manhattan Student Leadership Council, which was responsible for co-writing a law that mandated that all NYC public high schools and middle schools offer GSA's.  He is the author of 7 books for children. He is married to another person on this panel. 
• Jacqui Getz (M.A. '85) | Principal, 75 Morton / M.S. 297
  Jacqui Getz has been a teacher, consultant, and administrator for over 30 years. She has spent most of her career in NYC public schools, from the upper east and west sides, to Chinatown, and now in the West Village. In 2017, she opened a zoned untracked NYC DOE middle school in the West Village, MS 297/75 Morton. The school started with 194 students, and next year it is expected to have 860 students. Jacqui is married to David, the principal of East Side Middle School. They have 3 grown daughters, all of whom were at one point students in a school where she was the principal.
• Maria Paula Ghiso | Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Teachers College
  María Paula Ghiso is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her scholarship investigates literacy in multilingual and transnational contexts through community-based and participatory research methodologies. María Paula co-author of Partnering with immigrant communities: Action through Literacy, published by Teachers College Press, which received the 2017 Edward Fry Book Award from the Literacy Research Association and the 2018 David H. Russell Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. María Paula was also honored with the 2017 Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy from the Literacy Research Association for her TC Record Article, “The Laudromat as the Transnational Local: Young Chidren’s Literacies of Interdependence.”
• Mark Anthony Gooden | Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Professor in Education Leadership; Pro Summer Principals Academy-NYC Director
• Michael Hines | Minority Postdoctoral Fellow
  Michael Hines is the current Minority Postdoctoral Fellow at Teachers College Columbia University. He earned his B.A. in History from Washington University in St. Louis, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Education Policy Studies from Loyola University Chicago. Prior to pursuing graduate studies he worked as a K-12 teacher in Washington D.C. and Prince George's County Maryland. Dr. Hines' research interests include history of education, curriculum studies, social studies education, and the history of childhood. Currently his work focuses on how African Americans in the early twentieth created new curricular discourses around black history. His work has been published in History of Education Quarterly and The Journal of the History Childhood and Youth.
• Keerthana Hirudayakanth | Project Coordinator, Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution
  Keerthana Hirudayakanth is the Project Coordinator at MD-ICCCR. Keerthana graduated from Rutgers University with a B.S. in Public Health and minors in Business Administration and Psychology. Her research interests are focused on the intersections of gender, health, and conflict, and implementing systems-based thinking, policy, and partnerships to advance sustainable change. During her time at Rutgers, she led a number of direct service and community development initiatives and served as the Director of Community Service for the Programming Association. She also worked with the Central Jersey Family Health Consortium and the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and served as a Peer Educator in the Global Health Perspectives program.
• Enoch Jemmott | Student featured in Personal Statement
  After graduating Brooklyn Generation School, Enoch Jemmott worked as an intern for College Access: Research & Action (CARA), helping high school students prepare to work as peer college counselors in their schools. Enoch enrolled in SUNY Cortland in the fall of 2015 where he played football. Enoch transferred to Queens College in his Junior year, where he runs track and is majoring in Communications.
• Mariame Kaba | 2019 Morton Deutsch Award for Social Justice in Practice Recipient
  Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator and curator who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. She is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. She has co-founded multiple organizations and projects over the years including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Love & Protect and most recently Survived & Punished. Mariame is also a co-organizer of the Just Practice Collaborative, a training and mentoring group focused on sustaining a community of practitioners that provide community-based accountability and support structures for all parties involved with incidents and patterns of sexual, domestic, relationship, and intimate community violence. She is on the advisory boards of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, Critical Resistance and the Chicago Community Bond Fund.
  
• Arthur Langer (Ed.D. ‘99) | Honorary Professor of Practice, Columbia University
• Guillermo Linares (Ed.D. ’05) | Acting President of the NYS Higher Education Services Corporation, Former NYS Assembly Member, NYC Commissioner and Council Member
  Guillermo Linares, Ed.D was nominated by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo as President of the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) in February 2017. Leading the State’s student financial aid agency, Dr. Linares oversees one of the nation’s top need-based grant programs – the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), the first-in-the-nation program making public college tuition-free – the Excelsior Scholarship, and numerous other scholarship and award programs which totaled over $1.6 billion in aid in 2017-18, helping more than 357,000 students achieve their college dreams.
  Throughout his multi-faceted career, including serving as a school teacher, local school board member, City Council member, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, and New York State Assemblyman representing the 72nd District and in numerous other roles in the community, state and nation, Dr. Linares, a native of the Dominican Republic, has remained committed to improving public education and championing immigrant issues.
• Ioana Literat | Assistant Professor of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design, TC
  Ioana Literat is Assistant Professor in the Communication, Media & Learning Technologies Design program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research examines creative participation in online contexts, with a particular focus on youth and on the social, educational and civic stakes of online creativity. Her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Communication Theory, the International Journal of Communication, and Information, Communication & Society, among others.
• Leticia Lyle (M.A.'11)| Founding Partner and Global Chief Education Officer at Camino Education
  Leticia is a founding partner and Global Chief Education Officer at Camino Education. She has an extensive experience in the development and implementation of teaching methodologies, curriculum and teacher preparation for the 21st century. Winner of the 2017 Early Career Award from Teachers College, Columbia University, for her work with Social Emotional learning programs for low income students in Brazil. Leticia is the former Director of Curriculum, Assessment and Teacher Training at Somos Educação, and President of the Somos Institute, devising strategies for large-scale projects that supported partner schools and institutions in their challenges of transformation and quality attainment. As an entrepreneur in the education sector, Leticia founded AfterSchool Educação, a socio-emotional-focused early childhood lab school in São Paulo, and Instituto Vila Educação, a non-profit organization responsible for developing and implementing one of the largest public schools socio-emotional learning programs in Brazil, serving over 250 schools around the country.
• Ellen Meier (Ed.D. ‘02) | Professor of Computing and Educational Practice; Director of the Center for Technology and School Change
  Ellen Meier is Co-Founder and Director of the Center for Technology and School Change, and Professor of Computing and Educational Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research emphasis is on the creation of authentic inquiry learning environments, using technology as a catalyst for pedagogical change. The Center, which works with schools throughout the region and abroad, has developed a model, Innovating Instruction, that is currently being refined with support from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Meier advises the New York Board of Regents as Co-Chair of the Technology Policy and Practice Council and serves as an editor for two educational technology journals.
• John Mueller (Ed.D. ‘00) | Professor, Department of Student Affairs in Higher Education, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
  John Mueller is a Professor in the Department of Student Affairs in Higher Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has graduate degrees from Teachers College and Illinois State University. Dr. Mueller has over thirty years of practitioner and teaching experience in higher education. He is an active member, leader, and award recipient of ACPA-College Student Educators International. His scholarly and service activities focus on issues of multiculturalism and inclusion. He is co-author of Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs (2004), Creating Multicultural Change on Campus (2014), and Multicultural Competence in Student Affairs: Advancing Social Justice and Inclusion (2019).
  
• Kelley Nicholson-Flynn | Head of Upper School, Riverdale Country School
  Kelley Nicholson-Flynn is the Upper School Head at Riverdale Country School, a pre-K to 12 independent school in New York City. In this capacity, Dr. Nicholson-Flynn is responsible for the curricular and co-curricular experience of 500 students in grades 9 to 12, as well as managing 90 faculty members. She also teaches Bioethics, Biology and Honors Biology. Prior to Riverdale, Dr. Nicholson-Flynn taught at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey where, among other roles, she served as Science Department Chair and Coordinator of Teaching and Learning Programs. Dr. Nicholson-Flynn also worked as a Science Curriculum Group Lead Teacher at the Klingenstein Summer Institute (KSI) from 2004 to 2012. She continues to work with KSI by delivering highly interactive plenary sessions that form the foundation for new independent school teachers understanding of How Students Learn. Dr. Nicholson-Flynn holds a BS in Biology from Bucknell University, an MS in Interdisciplinary Science Studies from The Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from a joint program through Rutgers University & The University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ. Dr. Nicholson-Flynn lives in New York City with her spouse, Greg, and their two children, Nolan (18) and Jillian (11).
• Ahram Park | 2019 Morton Deutsch Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Recipient
  Ahram Park (M.Ed. '19) is a doctoral candidate in the Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her interest in examining the relationship between youth, citizenship, media, and social equality has also been fostered through her six-year collaboration at an alternative-to-detention afterschool program for youth ages 7-to-15 years old. Her dissertation was a participatory ethnographic study that highlighted the multi-consciousness of young people as they strive to live through their demographic identities, their involvement in digital and physical spaces, and their status in the justice system. She holds an M.A. degree in International Educational Development.
  
• Raechele Pope | Associate Dean and Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo
• Detra Price-Dennis | Associate Professor of Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design
  Detra Price-Dennis’s research on preparing critically conscious teachers who develop curricula that centers digital literacies and criticality in sociotechnical spaces has been published in journals such as The Reading Teacher, English Education, Equity and Excellence in Education, and Reading and Writing Quarterly. Her scholarship and contributions to the field of literacy teacher education have been recognized by her peers. In 2017 Dr. Price-Dennis was honored to receive the AERA Early Career Award for Teaching and Teacher Education, the Janet Emig award from NCTE’s Conference on English Education, and in 2018 she was elected to the board of directors for the Literacy Research Association.
  
• Yaron Prywes (Ph.D. ‘12) | Lecturer, Social-Organizational Psychology Program
• Amani Reed (M.A. ‘07) | Head of School, The School at Columbia
• Tom Rock (Ed.D. ‘02) | Vice Provost For Student Affairs
• Christine Rodriguez | Student featured in Personal Statement
  Christine Rodriguez attends Eugene Lang College at The New School, where she is pursuing a degree in Urban Studies with a Minor in Ethnicity and Race. As a native New Yorker born to Dominican parents, she has navigated the world centering the lives of those marginalized in all parts of her work. In doing so Christine has been committed to collective learning, community organizing and advocating for Educational Reforms. Working alongside other Black and Brown Youth to end the criminalization of young people through the school-to-prison pipeline and pushing for equitable resources to support the social, emotional, and academic needs of students from marginalized communities of color. On the ground, Christine has been committed to bringing college access at the Bushwick School for Social Justice as a college counselor, serves on a Mayoral task force for school climate and disciple and is a leader of the Youth Power Project at Make the Road New York.
• Riddhi Sandil | Director of the College Advising Initiative, Assistant Professor of Practice
  Riddhi Sandil, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Practice and Program Director of the Ed.M. Program in Psychological Counseling at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also serves as the Ombuds for Gender Based Misconduct at Teachers College and oversees the TC College Advising Program. Dr. Sandil received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa in 2008 and has been continually licensed as a Psychologist since 2009. Dr. Sandil's scholarly interests are influenced by multiculturalism, feminism, and social advocacy. Her research and clinical interests include minority stress, LGBTQ issues in counseling, counseling expectations of South Asian populations, and complex trauma and its impact on women's well being. Additionally, Dr. Sandil has served on the boards of the Association of Women, Masters in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council, and is the co-founder of the Sexuality, Women and Gender Project.
• Srishti Sardana | Doctoral Scholar & Lab Manager, Global Mental Health Lab, Clinical Psychology
  Srishti is a third-year doctoral student and has assisted on various projects with the aim to build skills needed to conduct high-impact mental health research in low-resource settings. She is working with Dr. Verdeli on various studies including Grand Challenges Canada funded IPT scalability for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, developing social-emotional learning packages for incoming Chinese youth enrolling in U.S. undergraduate programs, IPT implementation in Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and implemented a pilot study to assess the mental health needs of home-based female sex workers in rural India at the Global Mental Health Lab, Teachers College. Before enrolling at Teachers College, Srishti was employed in the juvenile offender unit at the Institute of Juvenile Justice, Delhi Police and initiated a narrative therapy-based intervention project in collaboration with a team of Australian psychotherapists for youth offenders committed for violent and non-violent crimes. Additionally, she helped a local mental health NGO to build the monitoring and evaluation platform of the Building Bonds project, which trained 100,000 men and boys to become active stakeholders in prevention of violence against women and girls in Delhi, India. Srishti is the co-founder of Sishu Vikas, an NGO, where she assisted in clinical work focused on providing therapeutic support for child and adult clients in need for crisis and suicide assessment and intervention for individuals exposed to violence, neglect, and sexual abuse.
  
• Jamie Solis (M.A. ‘18) | Founder of Noise212 Labs
  Jamie Solis is an educator who specializes in childhood development and digital technologies. She first earned a BS in Childhood & Special Education from NYU, where she discovered her passion for learning experience design. As a classroom teacher, Jamie observed the various manifestations of music in children’s daily lives and the ways in which technology shaped those experiences. She furthered her studies with an MA in Design and Development of Digital Games from the Teachers College at Columbia University, focusing on digital music learning for young children. Her firm belief in music as a conduit to the creative process led her to found NOISE212 Labs, a music enrichment program that introduces young children to DJing and digital music production.
  
• Joohee Son (Ed.D. ‘13) | President, The Center for Education & Technology; 2019 Alumni Awardee for Outstanding Service
  Joohee Son (Ed.D. ’13) has served as President of TC’s Korean Alumni Association, and took on the role of pledge coordinator for the TC's 125 Crowd-Sourced Scholarship. After finishing her studies at Teachers College, she established the “Center for Education & Technology” along with a school for K-12 students in Korea. The school uses embedded cognitive theories in the curriculum she created for teaching English. Dr. Son also designed a “Speaking Online System” to provide students with individual feedback on their English and critical thinking skills.
• Tim Sullivan (M.Ed. ‘17) | WeBop Instructor, Jazz at Lincoln Center
• Denny Taylor (Ed.D. ‘81) | 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
  Denny Taylor (Ed.D. ’81) is Professor Emeritus of Literacy Studies. The concept of "family literacy" originates in her doctoral research at Teachers College, Columbia University. Since 1977 she has been continuously engaged in research with families living in extreme poverty, and in regions of armed conflict and in the aftermath of weather related catastrophes. More than 140 U.N. Member States use family literacy initiatives to build more just, peaceful and inclusive societies. Renowned scholars on four continents and in five countries nominated her for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, and she has been nominated for the 2019 Peace Prize. Family literacy has become a conduit for many local and regional initiatives to end poverty and hunger, respond to public health emergencies, and promote gender equality, climate action, peace & justice, and strengthen partnerships to address the U.N. SDGs. Her books include novels as well as seminal research texts. Her first book Family Literacy (1983) is regarded a classic in the field; Growing Up Literate (co-researched with Catherine Dorsey-Gaines) received the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize (1988); and Toxic Literacies (1996) was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. In 2004 Taylor was inducted into the IRA’s Reading Hall of Fame. In 2019, she was named a recipient of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy (NCRLL) Distinguished Scholar Award. She is the co-founder and CEO of Garn Press, which has published many award-winning books by teachers and scientists.
• Lalitha Vasudevan | Professor of Technology & Education and Director, Media and Social Change Lab, Teachers College
  Vasudevan is Professor of Technology and Education and Vice Chair of the Mathematics, Science, and Technology Department at Teachers College, Columbia University. She studies the literacies, communicative practices, and digital lives of adolescents across a variety of contexts, including the educational and institutional experiences of system-involved youth; and she explores the use of new media and multimodal methods in research. Lalitha has co-edited two volumes that explore the intersections of youth, media, and education: Arts, Media, and Justice: Multimodal explorations with youth and Media, Learning, and Sites of Possibility.
  
• Lena Verdeli | Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Teachers College
  Professor Lena Verdeli, Ph.D, MSc is Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Clinical Training at the doctoral Clinical Psychology program, at Teachers College. She is also the Founder and Director of the Global Mental Health Lab. She received federal and foundation funding to study psychotherapy for prevention and treatment of mood disorders. In the past fifteen years, Lena Verdeli has played a key role in landmark studies involving adaptation, training, and testing of psychotherapy packages used by non-specialists with depressed adults in southern Uganda; war-affected adolescents in northern Uganda and Nepal; depressed IDP women in Colombia; depressed community members in Haiti; and war-affected Syrian refugees in Lebanon, among others.
• Cally Waite | Associate Professor of History and Education
• Emily Bailin Wells (Ed.D. ‘18) | Adjunct Assistant Professor, Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Emily holds an Ed.D. in Communications and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is particularly interested in the impact that mass media and popular culture images and messages can have on girls, and how to subsequently empower girls to use their voices and create their own media texts to speak back to the socially constructed representations and expectations they confront on a daily basis. Emily is passionate about working with educators on how to deliver more culturally relevant and socially just pedagogy by incorporating more popular culture texts and media artifacts into classroom activities and discussions as a way to foster greater criticality and more effective/productive ways of talking about issues of race, diversity, gender, and media literacy among 21st century teachers and learners.
• Liz Willen | Editor-in-Chief of The Hechinger Report
  Liz Willen, a longtime education reporter, has been proud to lead an award-winning staff of The Hechinger Report since 2011. She was recently honored for commentary writing by the New York Press Club. Liz got her start in newspapers as feature editor of Northport High School's "The Rag," in Northport, New York and worked at an array of New England newspapers before covering New York City public schools for New York Newsday. She's a graduate of Tufts University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and a board member for the Spencer Education Fellowships at Columbia. Liz is a sought-after moderator at education conferences and events, has been an active New York City public school parent and recipient of the “Above and Beyond,” award by the media company City & State for exemplary leadership. She hates jargon.
  
• Cynthia Rivera Weissblum | CEO of the Edwin Gould Foundation 
  Cynthia Rivera Weissblum is CEO of the Edwin Gould Foundation. She leads the EGF Accelerator, a unique long-term residential incubator for leaders and organizations innovating to address inequity in education. Read an interview with Cynthia here. 
  
• Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams (Ed.D. ’12) | 2019 Early Career Award Recipient
  Hakim Mohandas Amani WilliamsHakim Mohandas Amani Williams (Ed.D. ’12, International Educational Development) is Associate Professor of Africana Studies; Director of Peace and Justice Studies; and Faculty Affiliate of Education, Globalization Studies, and Public Policy at Gettysburg College. He is also a lecturer at the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College. He completed his B.A. in Psychology at St. Francis College, Brooklyn, and his M.A. and Ed.D. in International Educational Development and M.Ed. in Comparative and International Education at Teachers College, with foci in philosophy of education and peace education. His research centers on school/structural violence, educational inequities, and youth and community empowerment, and he has conducted many workshops and trainings on restorative circles in diverse settings.
  
• Jessica Wolff | Director of Policy and Research, Center for Educational Equity
  Jessica R. Wolff is director of policy and research at the Center for Educational Equity (CEE) at Teachers College. She leads the media literacy education project of the statewide DemocracyReady NY Coalition (which CEE convenes). Her research interests include understanding and documenting disparities in school-level resource availability and resource-accountability policy. Wolff was principal investigator of a landmark study of resource adequacy in 33 high-needs schools in eight New York districts. Her current projects include a comparative case analysis examining the extent to which public high schools are equipped with resources and practices necessary to prepare students for civic participation.