Spotlight Series of Distinguished Speakers

He is the author of three books including, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future (Beacon, 2009), which explores young people’s dynamic engagement with social media, games, mobile phones, and communities like Facebook.

Addressing issues that range from the social impacts of young people’s participation in digital media culture to the educational implications, Craig has engaged a dynamic mix of communities. Among them: the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Drug Addiction, IBM Center for Social Software, SXSW Interactive, the National School Boards Association, Smart Mixed-Signal Connectivity, the Austin Forum on Science and Technology for Society, iCivics, MacArthur Foundation, and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (NYC). He also blogs for the Huffington Post and DML Central, the online presence for the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the systemwide University of California Humanities Research Institute and hosted at the UC Irvine campus.

He is a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s research network on Connected Learning. His work in the network includes leading a team of researchers in an ethnographic study of teens and their participation in diverse digital media cultures and communities. Craig is also developing a high school project that looks at the connection between youth, digital media, design, and civic engagement.

For updates on these and other projects visit his website, theyoungandthedigital.com.

Farr also works to build the organization’s knowledge by learning from and sharing with other organizations working towards educational equity. Farr is the author of the organization’s 2010 book Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap.

Farr’s work featured in this recent Atlantic article on ABC World News Tonight as part of the Person of the Week segment. Since 2001, Farr has overseen various elements of Teach For America’s teacher training and support efforts, as well as studies of the best practices of highly effective teachers. He managed the research and development of a number of Teach For America’s training texts, including Instructional Planning and Delivery, Classroom Management and Culture, Learning Theory, and Diversity, Community, and Achievement.

He has contributed to the development of the Teaching As Leadership framework and rubric, as well as some of Teach For America’s online resources built around those ideas, including the public resource: www.teachingasleadership.org.

Farr’s work in education began when he joined Teach For America as a corps member in the Rio Grande Valley after graduating from the University of Texas’s Plan II Honors program. For two years, he taught high school English and English as a Second Language in Donna, Texas at Donna High School where he was nominated for Teacher of the Year by his colleagues. He then attended Yale Law School, where he focused on issues related to education. He coauthored “The Edgewood Drama: An Epic Quest for Education Equity” for the Yale Law and Policy Review, an overview of the policies and politics affecting school finance in Texas in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that education is not a fundamental right. While attending Yale, Farr taught English as a Second Language at Quinnipiac College and represented children in special education matters through the school’s legal clinic.

After law school, Farr served as a law clerk for the Honorable William Wayne Justice in Austin, Texas. Farr then taught and litigated civil rights and disabilities issues at the Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation until 2001, when he joined the staff of Teach For America as vice president of training and support.

Photo courtesy of Steven Farr.

As the Director of the OER Initiative at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation she managed investments totaling more than $100 million to harness the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge sharing worldwide.

At the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Cathy spearheaded work in the areas of transparency and technology as a Senior Partner and the Vice President of Innovation and Open Networks. With the extended Carnegie team she launched a continuous performance improvement system to create alternative mathematics pathways for community college students.

Cathy has been instrumental in supporting many young organizations and currently sits on the Startl board, the Peer-2-Peer University board and serves on the advisory committee for MIT OpenCourseWare and the University of the People. She earned her Ph.D. in the economics of education from Stanford University and a B.A. in mathematics from Boston College.

Prior to taking this position, he served as the Deputy Director for Postsecondary Improvement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading efforts to increase student success in the US postsecondary education sector.

He is an award-winning leader, author, speaker, and consultant. Mark is 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. He also serves on numerous corporate, nonprofit, and education boards and advisory groups, including Civitas Learning, an Austin-based learning analytics company, and MyCollege Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping low-income youth achieve quality college credentials.

Mark brings broad experience to this work. 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.

Regardless of all of his activities and accomplishments, he will quickly tell you that the most important job and the greatest blessing in his life is serving as Julia’s husband, and as father to Alexandra, Richard, Marcus, and Max.

Ken continues to lead e-Luminate Group, the education consulting firm he co-founded in 1997. Ken spent 28 years in Washington, DC, where he gained a national reputation as a coalition builder on competitiveness issues in education and industry —particularly policies and practices that support innovation and technology leadership. He founded a landmark coalition of U.S. universities and high-tech companies focused on research and development issues. He also was the founding Executive Director of the premier CEO advocacy group in the U.S. computer industry.

Ken is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Denver College of Law. He and his wife, Karen, have three adult children, a daughter-in-law and a grandson. They live in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona with their golden retriever, Bisbee.

Ms. Givens also provides leadership for Project Share, a major initiative that provides educators and students access to a statewide digital platform. Previously, she served as the Deputy Associate Commissioner for Standards and Alignment and was responsible for curriculum and the review, adoption and distribution of electronic instructional materials as well as traditional textbooks for Texas schools. Ms. Givens has led the educational technology efforts in Texas for over 19 years.

Prior to joining the department, Cator directed Apple's leadership and advocacy efforts in education. In this role, she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the reality faced by teachers, students and administrators. Cator joined Apple in 1997 from the public education sector, most recently leading technology planning and implementation in Juneau, Alaska. She also served as Special Assistant for Telecommunications for the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska. Cator holds a Masters in school administration from the University of Oregon and Bachelors in early childhood education from Springfield College. She is the past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and has served on the several boards including the Software & Information Industry Association—Education.

Dr. Fletcher served in a variety of positions with the Texas Education Agency from 1985 through 1996, the most recent as Associate Commissioner with responsibility for curriculum, assessment, textbooks, technology and professional development. He also served as Assistant Commissioner with responsibility for information systems and PEIMS, the largest education database in the country. Dr. Fletcher also was an assistant professor at Miami University and taught at the secondary school level for ten years. He holds an A.B. in English and an M.A.T. in English education from Miami University and an Ed.D. in Futures Study in Education from the University of Cincinnati.

In 2000, he co-founded the KIPP Foundation to help take KIPP to scale. Today, KIPP is a network of 109 high-performing public schools around the nation serving 33,000 children. In 2004, Dr. Feinberg was named an Ashoka Fellow, awarded to leading social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions and the potential to change patterns across society.

In 2005, Mike was the commencement speaker for the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences. Also in 2005, he led the effort to start a public K-8 school in Houston for Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans. The school, NOW College Prep (New Orleans West), opened in 10 days. In 2006, Drs. Feinberg and Levin were awarded The Thomas B. Fordham Prize for Excellence in Education, and the National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service by a Private Citizen. In 2008, Mike and Dave were named to the list of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report and received the Presidential Citizens Medal in the Oval Office of the White House. In 2009, they were the recipients of the Charles Bronfman Prize as well as the Manhattan Institute’s William E. Simon prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship. Dr. Feinberg and Dr. Levin’s efforts became the story told by Washington Post reporter, Jay Mathews, in his book “Work hard. Be nice.” KIPP has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS 60 Minutes, ABC World News Tonight, and in The New York Times, Houston Chronicle, Washington Post, and more. Mike is married to Colleen Dippel, and they have two children: Gus, age 6, and Abadit, age 1, who they adopted from Ethiopia in 2011.

Photo by Ethan Pines.

Dr. Quaglia holds a Bachelor's degree from Assumption College, a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Boston College and a Master of Education and Doctorate from Columbia University specializing in the area of organizational theory and behavior. He pioneers the work in student aspirations and serves on numerous national commissions to ensure the voices of students are always recognized, heard and acted upon.

Described by NBC-TV Today Show as America's foremost authority on the development and achievement of student aspirations, Dr. Quaglia is dedicated to promoting and putting into practice the conditions that foster student aspirations in schools and learning communities around the world. Together with his staff of professional educators, QISA has studied, trained and worked in K-12 schools, colleges and universities around the world.

She is the Chief Creative Officer of SuperBetter, a social venture based in San Francisco, and the principal architect of their first game of the same name, SuperBetter, launching to the public in March 2012.

Jane is the New York Times best-selling author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. She holds a PhD in performance studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is highly sought after as a keynote speaker for events with global reach, including TED, the Game Developers Conference, SXSW and Google Zeitgeist. Jane is also playing a high profile role at the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2012. Her 2011 TED speech has attracted over 1.5 million online views and her Twitter following of 25,000+ can be found @avantgame.