Dr. Jo Boaler is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University and founder of youcubed. Former roles have included being the Marie Curie Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Sussex, England, a mathematics teacher in London comprehensive schools and a lecturer and researcher at King’s College, London. She is the editor of the Research Commentary Section of The Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME), and the author of seven books including What’s Math Got To Do With It? (2009) Penguin, US, and The Elephant in the Classroom (2010) Souvenir Press, UK. She is the author of the first MOOC on mathematics learning for teachers and parents, a White House presenter and an advisor to the PISA team at the OECD.
Cathy Williams is the Co-Founder and the Executive Director of youcubed. Previously Cathy served as the Director of K-12 Mathematics in the Vista Unified School District where her professional development series earned a California State Golden Bell Award. The professional development in Vista Unified included a unique technology infused K-12 mathematics program that provided workshops for parents, teachers and administrators, and included talks and coaching by Jo Boaler. Cathy’s former roles have included a high school mathematics teacher, AVID coordinator, and mathematics department chair and district curriculum leader over an 18-year span before she became a curriculum and instruction administrator in 2003. Cathy served for seven years as the San Diego County Office of Education K-12 Mathematics Coordinator where her key projects included developing the book and professional development program, Math Language that Works and the online math teacher support program Getting Ready for Algebra.
Her professional development series, Algebraic Reasoning Through Inquiry (ARTI) supported many district teachers in San Diego County. During her County Office time Cathy served as the lead coordinator for the first generation California State Early Assessment Program (EAP) professional development series.
As a partner at YETi CGI, Ward Makielski plays a strong role in concept development and game design based on years of professional digital media experience. Ward has operated in many roles including Producer, Senior Game Designer, Artist, and Animator for 20+ software titles ranging from early Apple II graphic adventure games to the casual games market serving social media, web, and mobile platforms. From 1992-1996, Ward was a Game Designer for Sierra On-Line designing award-winning edutainment CD ROMs, and he was also an Artist/Animator on multiple titles. From 1996-1998, Ward filled many roles including Producer and Game Designer at Disney Interactive He is credited as the Overseas Animation Supervisor for the LEGO Bionicle computer-animated movie Mask of Light, which he worked on while living in Taiwan and working with Taipei-based CGCG. His client list includes Disney, Pixar, LEGO, EA, Mattel, Marvel, Cartoon Network, Universal, American Greetings, Mark Kistler, AOL, LeapFrog, Sierra On-Line (Vivendi-Universal), PAN Interactive, and MGA. Additionally, Ward was a faculty member and department chair at Ferris State University (Grand Rapids) in the Digital Animation and Game Design department. Ward is a graduate of the University of Illinois with a BFA in Industrial Design and an MBA from Ferris State University with a concentration in Innovation and Design Management. In 1996, he received a CODiE Award for his edutainment software design on The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain for Sierra On-Line.
Dr. Sepehr Moghadam, Head of Special Projects, University Relations at Google. He incubates programs that improve the experience and outcomes for underrepresented students in CS at the graduate level. His projects have focused on establishing a deeper understanding of underrepresented groups who choose computer science and the barriers preventing those that do not. He has a PhD in Political Science and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Masters in Policy Analysis and Evaluation from Stanford University.
Experienced director of research and strategic planning with a demonstrated history of working in the semiconductors industry. Skilled in User Experience, Learning Management, User Interface Design, Educational Technology product design and development, and Research. Strong business development professional with a Ph.D. focused in Design & Evaluation of Education Programs from Stanford University.
Rhonda has 20 years experience creating and marketing educational products, with focus on UI design and development of applications for touch-based mobile devices. Rhonda has 25 years researching trends in educational technology and the formal education market.
Ali studied physics and music at Swarthmore College and completed his doctoral degree in music composition, improvisation and performance with computers from the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley. Between 2007 and 2011, Momeni was an assistant professor in the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he directed theSpark Festival of Electronic Music and Art, and founded the urban projection collective called the MAW. Momeni is currently an associate professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University and directs CMU ArtFab, a laboratory that’s focused on making complex creative workflows accessible to youth and non-technical folks. Momeni teaches in CMU’s IDEATE, and Music Technology. His research interest include educational technologies, human-computer-interaction for performative applications of robotics, playful urban interventions, interactive projection performance, machine learning for artists and designers, interactive tools for storytelling and experiential learning, mobile and hybrid musical instruments, and the intersection of sound, music and health. In addition to his academic research and teaching, Ali is also co-founder of IRL Labs, an educational technology start-up focused on transforming everyday situations into interactive learning opportunities, using every technologies.
Mohsen has a passion for education, math, AI and life sciences. He spent a decade studying how to make machines more intelligent and believes artificial intelligence is one of the most important problems for mankind to solve. He believes that it is not an easy problem and we need millions of creative problem solvers working together to have a chance. Mohsen holds a PhD in Machine Learning from UC Irvine and BS in Mathematics from the Sharif University of Technology.
Mohammad has a B.Sc. degree in computer engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, an M.Sc. from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from MIT. He is currently a senior staff research scientist at Google Research NY. Prior to Google, he has worked at Yahoo! Research and Microsoft Research.