CELFE - Key Persons
Dr. Rye Ellis Katz brings depth of experience and knowledge in organizational change, program development, and narrative strategy. For the past five years, Ellis has been working nationally as an equity communications consultant to support the sustainable collaboration of multiple stakeholder groups for dynamic organizational growth and resonance across audiences. Ellis's work at CELFE focuses on stakeholder engagement and using narrative strategy to translate complex research-based strategies into compelling documents for broad consumption. Ellis supports the team in building outreach to launch a movement for governance and financing innovation for ECEC systems.
Ellis's background in organizational and community partnerships supports their work as a committed advocate for educational justice. As a learning designer and researcher, Ellis works on student, family, and teacher-led local control movements, restorative behavioral programs and practices, and alternatives to school discipline.
Ellis received their MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and their Doctorate in Educational Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Expert
Dr. Theresa Hawley is an expert in early childhood programs and systems that support the school readiness and social competence of young children in poverty. In her previous role as Director of Early Childhood Transformation, in partnership with the Governor's Office, she directed the design of changes to Illinois' funding mechanisms and governance structure for early childhood education in partnership with the Governor's Office. In her time serving as First Assistant Deputy Governor for Education, she helped to coordinate education policy across the many state agencies that cover the education spectrum from birth through higher education.
Theresa has served in many roles in Illinois'throughout the early childhood system. From 2017 to 2019, she was Senior Vice President for Policy and Innovation at Illinois Action for Children, where she led the agency's efforts to link together program, research and public policy and advocacy work. From 2012 to 2015, Dr. Hawley served as the Executive Director of the Illinois Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development, where she led the development and implementation of the state's Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge and Preschool Development Grant plans. Before joining the Governor's Office, Theresa was the founding Project Director of Educare of West DuPage and a consultant to early learning programs and community collaborations across Illinois and nationally.
Theresa received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Notre Dame and her Doctorate in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan.
Maya Portillo has worked in early childhood education for several years in various roles ranging from research, evaluation, and philanthropy. Now, as Policy Associate for CELFE, Maya is excited to combine her skills of policy analysis and stakeholder engagement with her passion for early care and education as a tool to uplift the needs of young children and their families and more broadly, as a lever to combat poverty
Maya holds her undergraduate degree in Industrial Labor Relations from Cornell University and a master's degree in Public and Non-Profit Management and Policy from New York University.
Sessy Nyman is a seasoned nonprofit executive with 25+ years of experience in government and organizational leadership. She has worked in the field of early care and education, maternal & child health, community and stakeholder engagement and early childhood policy for more than 2 decades. She continues to lift up the needs of young children and working families in her current role as Deputy Director for the Center for Early Learning Funding Equity (CELFE).
Sessy's responsibilities in CELFE build on her 20+ years working with child care providers, advocates, child care resource and referral agencies and with families across Illinois to move systems-change forward across the state. Sessy was pivotal in the state's implementation and funding of early childhood collaborations, helped to establish the state's Early Learning Council (2003), led multi-year advocacy efforts in Illinois that led to significant investments in access and quality expansion, and initiated the formation of the state's Child Day Care Licensing Task Force. Sessy has presented locally and nationally on issues related to child care access and equity, family, friend and neighbor care and parent choice, mixed delivery systems in ECEC, grassroots organizing and effective advocacy for ECEC, facilities improvements in child care, and many more topics related to early care and education.
Sessy holds her undergraduate degree in Government and International Studies and History from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Science degree in Geosciences from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.