ISKME - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chief Product Officer
- Founder
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Co - Founder and Member of the Board of Directors for Ripcord
Bio:
As co-founder and member of the board of directors for Ripcord, Alex Fielding is responsible for the leadership, vision and execution of the company. Fielding started his career as an engineer at Cisco Systems and Apple, where he worked on multiple generations of MacOS, PowerBook, Network Server and was part of the first iMac team. Shortly after departing Apple, he worked at Exodus Communications with Ellen Hancock, Exodus'S CEO who was Apple's former CTO.
He co-founded Wheels of Zeus with Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak in 2001, which was sold to Zontrak in 2006. Alex was Chief Technology Officer, Federal Government at Power Assure and then Vice President at Vigilent before starting Ripcord. Alex sits on the Board of Directors of The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), is a Board Member of the Code Warriors Foundation and is a founding member of Singularity University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Senior Advisor
Bio:
Amee Evans Godwin serves as Senior Advisor for ISKME, consulting on research projects and leading the national GoOpen initiative. She brings more than three decades of experience in applied research and interactive applications focused on learning and collaboration. Prior to joining ISKME, Amee worked as a consultant at Interval Research and in strategic market research at high-tech firms and nonprofits in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. A former producer/director of award-winning documentaries, she earned a Master's Degree from New York University Tisch School of the Arts in Interactive Telecommunications, and B.A. from University of Buffalo's Center for Media Study. She continues to be passionate about creating digital media and art.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Research Associate
Bio:
Anastasia Karaglani is a research associate at ISKME, focusing on quantitative and qualitative data collection, data management, and analyses. She has worked as a research assistant at U.S.C., CRESST/U.C.L.A. and Stanford University conducting quantitative and qualitative research.
Anastasia holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Senior Software Architect
Bio:
Anoop Aryal oversees all modernizing and streamlining of ISKME's open library technologies and platforms, building the next generation of services and tools that turbocharge sharing and collaboration. He brings over 20 years of experience in developing software platforms to streamline workflows. He has worked in both startups and small businesses, with a strong focus on building efficient and highly scalable systems. Anoop holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Science.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Senior Fellow, Open Education
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Economist
- VP, Research and Development
Charles "Chip" Hatcher is an economist by training, and was on the faculty at three land grant universities (at one, he taught Financial Planning in a distance-ed program). He has consulted for various organizations committed to getting more students in and through college, where he helped institutions marry mission to budget. He lives in San Francisco.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Metadata Librarian
Bio:
Chris Adcock brings over 15 years of editorial and information management experience to the team at ISKME. He works on metadata, information architecture, and curation for OER Commons and its partner hubs and microsites. In addition to this he has worked as a tractor operator on an organic farm, a brewer, a bartender and a sailing instructor at various points in his life. Chris holds a Master's Degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and a Master's in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Contractor - Facilitation and Design
- Special Assistant
Bio:
Christina Spears is the Special Assistant in the Office of Equity Affairs for Wake County Public School System and the Vice President of Wake County NCAE. A graduate of Meredith College with a Master of Arts in Teaching, and a K-12 Special Education licensure. In her role as Wake NCAE VP, she works with educators across the district and state to organize and fight for the schools our students deserve. In her role as Special Assistant, Spears hopes to build district-wide support systems for teachers focused on culturally sustaining instructional practices that disrupt inequities and transform school systems. Christina is a co-designer and facilitator of ISKME's culturally responsive teaching workshops, and she engages directly with educators and leaders on the ground to support educators in critically interrogating and remixing OER to be more responsive and sustaining. Christina has led the development of the Tool for Identifying Bias and consults on project development. She is also an adjunct professor at Meredith College and PhD student in Educational Studies & Cultural Foundations at UNC-Greensboro.
Job Titles:
- Associate Provost for Academic Planning, University of Washington
Job Titles:
- Administrator
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Vice Chancellor of Educational Services and Technology for Coast Community College District
Bio:
Dr. Andreea Serban is an educator and administrator with more than two decades of experience in the leadership of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad and possesses a highly diverse and successful professional background. Dr. Andreea Serban currently serves as Vice Chancellor of Educational Services and Technology for Coast Community College District in Costa Mesa, CA. Dr. Serban is the district chief academic, student services and technology officer and has leadership responsibilities for instructional programs, student services, grant development, planning, institutional research, international programs, academic and administrative technology, and economic and partnership development across the three colleges in the district: Orange Coast College, Golden West College, and Coastline Community College. The three colleges offer over 300 credential and degree programs and serve 45,000 students.
Previously, Dr. Serban served for more than three years as Superintendent/President of Santa Barbara
City College (SBCC) in Santa Barbara, CA, during which time she led the institution to be recognized as one of the top 10 community colleges in the country, as determined by the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. Dr. Serban also served at SBCC and South Orange County Community College District in Mission Viejo, CA, in senior positions ranging from Director of Institutional Assessment, Research and Planning to Associate Vice President for Information Technology, Research and Planning to Vice Chancellor of Technology and Learning Services. Dr. Serban also held administrative and faculty positions at University of Redlands in Redlands, CA, Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, NY, State University of New York System Administration in Albany, NY, Institute for Educational Sciences and University of Bucharest in Bucharest, Romania.
Dr. Serban received a Ph.D. and a Master of Science in Higher Education Administration from University at Albany, State University of New York and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from University of Bucharest.
Dr. Serban has been involved in local, state and national organizations and recognized as an educational leader. In March 2011, Dr. Serban became the only current representative of a community college to be appointed by the U.S. Secretary of State Clinton to the prestigious U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Dr. Serban is the Board President of the statewide non-profit consortium California Colleges for International Education.
Dr. Serban is a published author since 1992 and executive editor of the Journal for Applied Research in the Community College, a publication of the National Community College Council for Research and Planning. Dr. Serban authored monographs and articles and has been a frequent speaker at regional, state and national events on knowledge management, performance funding and reporting, assessment of
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Chief Learning Officer at Civitas Learning
Bio:
Dr. Mark David Milliron is Chief Learning Officer at Civitas Learning. Prior to Civitas, he was the founding chancellor of Western Governors University, Texas. He has also served as Deputy Director for Postsecondary Improvement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading efforts to increase student success in the US postsecondary education sector. In previous roles, he founded the private consulting group, Catalyze Learning International (CLI); served as an Endowed Fellow, Senior Lecturer, and Director of the National Institute of Staff and Organizational Development in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin; served as Vice President for Education and Medical Practice with SAS, the world's largest private software company; and was President and CEO of the League for Innovation in the Community College.
In 1999, The University of Texas at Austin's College of Education named Mark a Distinguished Graduate for his service to the education field. In 2005, he received the annual PBS/ETS O'Banion Prize for transformational work in support of teaching and learning. In 2007, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) presented him with its National Leadership Award for his work in advancing education opportunity. And in 2011, the National University Technology Network (NUTN) named Mark the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for his leadership in advancing innovative technology use in education. He is an award-winning leader, author, speaker, and consultant well known for exploring leadership development, future trends, learning strategies, and the human side of technology change. He has worked with universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, corporations, associations, and government agencies across the country and around the world.
Mark also serves on numerous corporate, nonprofit, and education boards and advisory groups, including WGU; the Global Online Academy, a not-for-profit educational partnership serving independent schools nationally and internationally; and the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), the parent organization of the Big Ideas Fest.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Executive Director at College Promise Campaign
Bio:
Dr. Martha Kanter leads the College Promise Campaign, a national initiative to increase college access, affordability, quality, and completion in American higher education, starting in America's community colleges. She is also a Senior Fellow at New York University's Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy, focused on policies and practices to raise America's high school and college graduation rates. Formerly, she was President Obama's U.S. Under Secretary of Education, overseeing all federal postsecondary policies and programs for the U.S. Department of Education. From 1993-2009, she was president and chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Vice President and Strategic Initiatives at Campus Labs
- Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Campus Labs
Bio:
Dr. Nicole Melander is Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Campus Labs, an education technology company committed to empowering higher education through strategic use of data. Nicole brings to this role experience in professional services, training, operations, innovation, and technology within multi-national software companies, small non-profits, and consulting partnerships. Nicole consultants with universities and community colleges across the country to leverage their data and application ecosystems to develop insight, identify opportunities, and enable institutional improvement.
In previous roles, Nicole served as Vice President, Consulting at Civitas Learning where she was also a faculty member of the Next Generation Leadership Academy (NGLA), a program dedicated to grounding rising educational leaders in the issues and innovations of the day. Prior to joining Civitas Learning, Nicole served as Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In this position, she was dedicated to the transformation of the learning experience through strategic digital innovation and a superb customer experience. She worked closely with every functional area of the company to consider the implications of technology on people, process, and product.
Previous to HMH, she served as the Chief Technology Officer of Achieving the Dream (ATD), a national reform network dedicated to community college student success and completion, as well as education and technology leadership positions at Deloitte Consulting, Microsoft and Oracle Corporation. Her four years of full-time teaching experience - in the classroom, online, and in a blended environment - keeps her focused on the learning transformation that her work enables.
In 2008, students and faculty at American University selected Nicole to receive the campus wide "Teaching with Technology" award for faculty who have demonstrated creativity in using technology in their teaching. In 2010, West Chester University of Pennsylvania presented Nicole with the Distinguished Alumni Award for providing a great service to society, receiving outstanding acknowledgement in their profession, and positively affecting a large number of people. In 2015, Nicole was further honored by being asked to deliver the commencement speech at West Chester University of Pennsylvania.
Nicole received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from West Chester University, a Master of Science degree in technical management from Johns Hopkins University, and a Doctorate of Philosophy degree in information technology from George Mason University. Nicole holds a patent in the area of Information Retrieval.
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff
- Member of the ISKME Team
Bio:
Ethan Senack is the Chief of Staff at ISKME. With a background in organizing and campaigns, Ethan's work has focused on dismantling inequity and furthering social justice across a variety of issue areas. At ISKME, Ethan works to build systems and strategies that make the organization more effective, support the professional development of team members, and foster a healthy team culture-as well as projects to improve the organization's efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Prior to joining the ISKME team, Ethan spent time with Creative Commons USA and with U.S. PIRG directing advocacy efforts around more equitable, accessible education. He holds degrees in Sociology and Political Science from the University of Connecticut and is based in Washington, DC.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Learning & Teaching ( CALT )
Job Titles:
- Dean and Associate Professor, Morgridge College of Education
Hal Plotkin provides thought leadership, strategic advice, and program design to further extend ISKME ‘s global impact. During the Obama administration, Mr. Plotkin served as the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education, which oversees all federal higher education programs and policies. He authored the first board policy at a community college in the United States that promoted the use of Open Educational Resources while serving as president and trustee of the Silicon Valley-based Foothill-De Anza Community College District Governing Board. He was a founding editor of the public radio program Marketplace, the former Silicon Valley Correspondent for CNBC.com, and former Senior Open Policy Fellow at Creative Commons USA. Mr. Plotkin earned his A.A. degree in History from Foothill Community College and his B.A. degree in Behavioral Sciences from San Jose State University.
Job Titles:
- Senior Analyst, Bank of America Securities
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Vice President
- Vice President & General Manager at Intel Corp
Bio:
Jason S. Goecke is a vice president in the Client Computing Group and general manager of Intel Unite at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for overseeing all operational aspects of the Intel Unite business, including product strategy, product development, go-to-market strategy, as well as building and leveraging key industry partnerships.
Goecke joined Intel in 2019 from Cisco where he was responsible for leading strategic planning and management for product groups including Cisco Webex Teams and Webex Assistant. From 2011 to 2015, he served as president and CEO of Tropo, Inc., prior to its acquisition by Cisco. During his tenure, he directed the company's overall strategic direction, planning, and execution for the cloud telecom developer platform and drove rapid business development across 10 locations including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, China, and Singapore. Earlier in his career, he held a variety of leadership positions in business development, global marketing, sales, and technology, driving significant business impact and fostering technical innovations at Voxeo Labs, Adhearsion, Presence Technology, Exigen, and Genesys, among others.
An experienced leader in high-tech advancements and data analytics, Goecke is a frequent guest speaker at global industry conferences for collaboration, telecommunications, cloud, and developer platforms.
Job Titles:
- Professional Learning Specialist
Bio:
Joanna Schimizzi is a National Board Certified Teacher who teaches high school Biology. She has her undergraduate degrees in Biology and Dance Education and has taught Biology and AP Biology in Charlotte, NC. Joanna holds a Masters of Education from Northeastern University with a focus on Classroom Culture and Adult Learning. Joanna is passionate about the importance of curriculum materials in building positive cultural and linguistic identities and about collaboration between educators. With ISKME, Joanna works with partners to co-design and co-facilitate professional learning that supports educators in finding, using and adapting OER for the needs of their students. Joanna also uses her expertise in adult learning to support research initiatives that engage educators in transforming their educational experiences.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Design Strategy Director at D - Ford
Bio:
Jonah is a Design Strategy Director at D-Ford in Palo Alto, CA. D-Ford is the human-centered design organization within the Ford Motor Company and is chartered with helping bring the tools and methods of design into the 118-year-old legacy company. His work is primarily focused on understanding the intersection of the changing context of work and transportation.
Prior to Ford, Jonah spent nearly two decades at IDEO holding a number of roles from engineering to organizational design. He has worked to bring design thinking into many different contexts from the Intelligence Community to start-ups.
Outside of work, Jonah is a father of three children and two Samoyeds. You will often find him perfecting his sourdough or otherwise tinkering around in the kitchen.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
Bio:
Connecting people and their passions with my organization's mission is what I do best. I have engineered and executed communication strategies in higher ed and nonprofits for over 15 years, bringing creativity, empathy, and curiosity to mission-driven organizations doing critical work supporting people on their journeys of self-improvement. Lea works to support our partners and help make their open education initiatives a success.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow, Research Center for Leadership in Action
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Founder
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Member of the ISKME Team
- CEO and Founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management
Bio:
Lisa Petrides, Ph.D. is CEO and founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), an education nonprofit dedicated to making learning and knowledge-sharing participatory, equitable, and open. A former professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership at Columbia University, Teachers College, she has advised and led development efforts that have enabled schools, colleges, universities, ministries of education, and the organizations that support them to expand their capacity to use data and information, and create inclusive knowledge-driven environments focused on teaching and learning. Petrides received her B.S. from University of California Berkeley, MBA from Sonoma State University, and Ph.D. in Education Policy from Stanford University.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Job Titles:
- President, Mary Furlong and Associates
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Senior Product Manager, Field Building
Bio:
Megan Simmons leads the Field Building Team at ISKME which offers holistic support for Open Educational Practice (OEP) projects from inception to implementation. This includes all of the project management, thought partnership, planning, strategizing, outreach, facilitation, training, events, design, and innovation that goes into making these projects successful. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of San Francisco. Before coming to ISKME in 2008, she spent seven years teaching and managing education programs in both formal and informal settings throughout California and in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. She is particularly passionate about providing environmental education and art programs to underserved communities around the world.
Job Titles:
- Product Manager, OER Platforms and Services
Bio:
Michelle Brennan leads overall product development for ISKME's Open Access Digital Library Platforms. Collaborating across research, UX, engineering, and customer service teams, she works to define and deliver features and services that bring value to our partners and further the vision of equitable and open access to high quality educational materials. Michelle received her Masters in Information Science from the University of Michigan School of Information where she worked as an Instructional Technology Support Librarian. She is passionate about the role of open knowledge tools in education because improving opportunities for participation in collaborative spaces is an important part of empowering individuals and communities.
Job Titles:
- Member of the ISKME Team
- Research Associate
Job Titles:
- OER Metadata Specialist
- Specialist
Bio:
Peter Musser is an OER Metadata Specialist at ISKME, where he helps curate and manage records in OER Commons. He holds a B.A. in Chinese and a Masters in Library and Information Studies from University of British Columbia. Since leaving the US Navy in 2014, he's had various roles in Open Access and Open education: video production, social science education research, web design/content creation, and instructional design. He also works as a public librarian for a public library system in western Canada where he spends his time enjoying nice weather, reading a good book, cooking, or looking up big words in dictionaries. Peter speaks English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and French.
Bio:
Ramona is passionate about empowering others to live the life of their dreams. As a Financial Advisor, she provides comprehensive financial planning, investment solutions, and protection services to individuals and institutions. Ramona's prior experiences led her to the financial services industry. She founded and operated an award-winning chocolate business for eight years. Before launching her business in 2011, Ramona had an entrepreneurial career for 18 years in the nonprofit sector, primarily in education philanthropy, where she was typically hired to create and implement new programs, departments, or organizations that addressed a problem, disparity, or need. Ramona has extensive experience in nonprofit management, philanthropy (traditional grant making and venture investing), and education, specifically in developing and executing initiatives from the ground up. At her core, Ramona is a learner and problem solver. She currently serves as a Senior Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Consultant to the Center for Responsive Schools. Ramona started her career as a systems consultant and has held management and consultant positions in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. She holds a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and a doctorate in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she received the Phi Delta Kappa Award for Outstanding Dissertation in the Graduate School of Education. Her training focused on higher education administration, quantitative research methods, and program evaluation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Development and Execution at the Institutional Financial Services
Bio:
Sharon Dhall leads the development and execution of the Institutional Financial Services (IFS) modernization roadmap across the Operations and Technology organizations at TIAA to outline how the company will develop, automate and transform the infrastructure and key processes for IFS to scale and deliver best-in-class services for plan sponsors and participants. Partnering with TIAA business and technical leadership, Sharon is responsible for rationalizing the platforms and applications that support our overall service processes, and for the development and implementation of our workflow strategy to drive participant and plan sponsor self-service and deliver an improved customer and employee experience. She is also instrumental in the continued progress achieved by the Robotics Center of Excellence and in developing a community of practice to share learnings with her counterparts across the enterprise.
Sharon has more than 20 years of experience and a proven track record of success in technology, operations, business / process transformation, and finance leadership roles. She joined TIAA in 2017 from JPMorgan Chase, where she was Technology CFO/COO for the Corporate Investment Bank division, responsible for $3.6 billion in annual technology spend and the delivery of a $200 million, multi-year efficiency program. Sharon held other technology and process leadership roles of increasing responsibility at JPMorgan, including managing transformational initiatives across the $1 billion banking technology portfolio and driving process re-engineering efforts in the wholesale business. She also spent more than 12 years with General Electric in the GE capital and finance divisions in roles that ranged from project management to chief information officer, where she managed a $25 million IT budget and more than 400 resources.
Sharon has a Bachelors in Information Sciences & Technology from Syracuse University, an Executive MBA from the University of Connecticut, and a Masters in Organization Psychology from Teachers College at Columbia University. She is active in her community, Operation Walk Maryland, several Asian and Women's Diversity Networks, and Syracuse and JPMorgan alumni groups. She has served as a member of the board of Emma Willard All Girls High School since 2015, and authored a book about information technology in higher education.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- CEO and Founder, Junyo
Bio:
Steve is a technology entrepreneur with a passion for tackling complex social problems. As a corporate leader and philanthropist, he has impacted the lives of millions and helped generate significant global business success through technology, gaming and educational initiatives. He is founder and CEO of Junyo, a learning-analytics company in Silicon Valley, with the mission to improve the learning experience of every child. Steve sits on the board of the Full Circle Fund, a non-profit incubator helping to accelerate change in education, environment, and economic opportunity. He also is also a board member of Indiegogo, a crowd-funding platform supporting entrepreneurs and causes.
He was co-founder, vice president and first employee of Zynga, and core member of Kontiki. Early in his career, he helped build some of the world's first mobile computers at GO and General Magic.
He graduated University of California at Berkeley with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Directors and Officers Team
- Chief Executive Officer and President at Makeover Solutions, Inc.
Bio:
Steven A. Elkes serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Makeover Solutions, Inc. Steven served as Chief Revenue Officer and an Executive Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) at TheStreet, Inc. (also known as TheStreet.com Inc.) from March 26, 2007 to March 2009. He served as Executive Vice President of Operations and Business Affairs at iVillage Inc., since July 2000 and also served as its Secretary since October 1999. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Ivillage Inc., since June 2004. From April 1999 to July 2000, he served as Senior Vice President of Business Affairs of iVillage Inc. From August 1996 to April 1999, he held various management positions at iVillage, including a Vice President of Business Affairs.
While managing all phases of The Street's capital raising efforts including private placements, IPO, and secondary offerings used for acquisition purposes, Steven oversaw the strategic implementation and integration of those acquisitions into iVillage. In addition, he managed the public sales process of iVillage to NBC Universal. He is a seasoned executive with more than 20 years of solid experience, he has a stellar record of improving results in varied businesses. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Azoogle (azoogleads.com), where he oversaw the financial, legal and human resources functions in addition to their M&A activities. From August 1993 to August 1996, he served as Vice President Credit and Structured Finance at CNA Insurance Company. From August 1991 to August 1993, he served as Assistant Vice President of CNA Insurance Company. Steven received his M.B.A. from Baruch College and his B.A. from Grinnell College.
Job Titles:
- Senior Education Specialist, Education Global Practice, World Bank