Frank Catalano
Principal, Intrinsic Strategy
EdNET Insight Analyst, MDR

Frank Catalano is a strategic marketing consultant and industry analyst. He has worked with a wide variety of education technology and digital learning companies, including Capstone Digital, Sokikom, Apple, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, MetaMetrics and others. His work ranges from developing practical marketing strategies with hands-on execution to longer-term interim executive assignments. Frank also spent four years as senior vice president of marketing for Pearson's U.S. school and assessment businesses. Frank is a well-known speaker, author and media commentator. He writes the Practical Nerd column for GeekWire.com, consults from IntrinsicStrategy.com and tweets @FrankCatalano.

Dan Caton
President
McGraw-Hill School Education

Dan Caton is President of McGraw-Hill School Education, America’s premier publisher of PreK-12 educational programs and services. He previously served as Executive Vice President of the program development and product marketing activities of MHSE.

Dan began his career as a middle school teacher in southern California. He moved to educational publishing, where he oversaw the creation of educational programs in nearly all areas of elementary and secondary publishing. Beginning in 1986, Dan also supervised the development of electronic education, beginning with stand-alone disc-based software, early CD-ROM development, and later some of the first educational web pages. Dan then served as Vice President, Product Development for Computer Curriculum Corporation in Sunnyvale, California.

Prior to joining McGraw-Hill in April of 2007, Dan served as President of Pearson Learning Group, the Pearson unit responsible for alternative basal, supplemental materials, and formative assessment.

Dan serves as the Past President of the Board of the Association of Educational Publishers. Dan holds a BA in Literature from Claremont McKenna College and an MA in Education from Claremont Graduate School, both located in Claremont, California.

Scott Drossos
Senior Vice President
Pearson

Scott leads Pearson’s 1:1 school learning strategy across the U.S. Scott and his team work with districts around the country that are committed to personalizing the educational experience for their students, bringing laptops, tablets, and mobile learning into the classroom. Over his career he has worked at Apple, where he assisted with the integration of the newly acquired PowerSchool; served as President of Tungsten Learning, focusing on helping school districts use online formative assessment data to inform instruction and improve student outcomes; and led product development, school design, marketing and business development at Edison Learning. Scott joined Pearson in 2009 as President of K-12 Solutions to partner with school districts around the country and implement system-wide sustainable processes and strategies to improve student achievement.

Dr. Ronald Fortune
Co-Founder and Chairman
Education.com

Ronald is the Co-Founder and Chairman at Education.com. Previously Dr. Fortune served as CEO from October 18, 2006 to February 29, 2012. Dr. Fortune was the founder and CEO of Edumetrics Learning, a company focused on developing technology-based educational content for students, which eventually formed a partnership with the EPGY program at Stanford University. He also served for 10 years as CEO of Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC). During his tenure as CEO, CCC became the largest educational software company in the United States.

Dr. Fortune has delivered numerous speeches, presentations, and testimonials to federal and state congressional committees, international educational leaders, educational associations, and governmental groups. He has served as a member of California’s Information Technology Council, as Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Software and Information Industry Association (formerly Software Publishers Association), and as President of the CEO Forum, a Washington, D.C,-based organization advocating the use of technology in schools. He has also served on the National Board for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and on the Board of Directors for Edison Schools, Inc.

Dr. Fortune serves as a senior advisor to Project Pipeline, a nonprofit teacher recruitment and credentialing institute, and volunteers in various school and community functions. A former secondary classroom teacher and school administrator, Dr. Fortune holds a Ph.D. in Education, an M.B.A., and a B.A. all from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tyson Greer
CEO
Ambient Insight LLC

Tyson Greer has more than 30 years of experience analyzing customer/business needs and market opportunities, designing targeted content in various media, and researching practical applications of emerging technologies. Her primary market analysis work for Ambient Insight focuses on Brain Fitness, mHealth, Mobile Learning in Healthcare, Mobile Augmented Reality, and Location-based Learning.

Tyson's expertise in strategic content gap/opportunity analysis includes identifying the most effective means to reach intended audiences and achieve measurable results. Her work spans a broad range of media, from books and white papers to videos, Web articles, online learning, and analysis reports; and is guided by a commitment for understanding and meeting customer needs. Her practice in Brand Strength Awareness helps Ambient Insight clients uncover missed opportunities to meet their organization's business goals.

Before co-founding Ambient Insight, Tyson was Web Communications Manager/Senior Editor for several of Microsoft's corporate web sites, including the Business, Mobility, Privacy, Security, and Learning and E-Learning sites. As an Environmental and Energy Analyst for Simpson Paper Company, Greer analyzed and reported on emerging issues and created forecasts for corporate decision-making.

Tyson also holds awards for excellence in scriptwriting, earned while she ran her media services company, "Tyson Greer. . . . Writes." She produced, wrote, and directed award-winning corporate television and documentaries. Her background also includes developing emergency response procedures, including first-responder action plans and risk mitigation/response measures for computer security-related and environmental incidents.

Through her work in media, Tyson developed scenarios, role-playing, and game-based content for corporate training. Her corporate clients have included Weyerhaeuser, Boeing, Southern California Edison, Intel, Quest Communications, and Microsoft. She taught scriptwriting at the University of Washington for ten years.

A published author, Tyson's book Understanding Intranets for the Microsoft Press Strategic Technology Series was translated into eight languages and sold worldwide.

Tyson serves on several non-profit advisory boards including the United States Distance Learning Advisory Board, University of Washington Independent Filmmaking Advisory Board, and Friends of Cedar River Watershed Board. She has been a featured presenter at numerous conferences, webinars, and workshops.

Jennifer S. Groff
Director of Learning and Program Development
Learning Games Network

Jennifer an educational engineer and researcher whose work focuses on redesigning learning environments and experiences through educational innovations and technologies. Currently, she is the Director of Learning for the Learning Games Network, a non-profit spin-off from the MIT Education Arcade, which focuses on the leading edge of educational game design. She is also the co-founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign--an international NGO dedicated to redesigning the general curricula for the 21st century. She is also an advisor to the OECD Innovative Learning Environments project, where she studies the dynamics and system design of innovative learning environments around the globe. Most recently, Jen was a US-UK Fulbright Scholar at Futurelab Education in Bristol, United Kingdom, where she continued her work on system innovation and researched the use of console-games in Scotland’s schools. For her innovative teaching in the K-12 classroom, she was was named a Microsoft Innovative Teacher Leader in 2005 and a Google Certified Teacher. Jennifer is the author of numerous frameworks on unblocking innovation in education systems, transformation and design over educational reform, and the ‘whole-mindedness’ pedagogical approach, and is one of the authors in the new book 20Under40: Reinventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century—which selected submissions from 20 emerging arts education leaders under the age of 40. Currently, Jen is leading the work on assessment in games and knowledge base development at LGN. Her primary areas of expertise are in the learning sciences, digital innovations for learning, new models of assessment and curricula, and the nature of innovation in education systems.

Michael Haggen
Deputy Superintendent of Innovation and Reform
East Baton Rouge (LA) Public School System

Mr. Haggen brings 20 years of educational experience and is former Deputy Superintendent -New Orleans Recovery School District, Principal and Teacher – Detroit & Lansing, Michigan, and taught numeracy in Senegal, West Africa in the United States Peace Corps as a Small Enterprise Development Agent.

In 2010 Michael Haggen joined the St. Louis Public School District as an Associate Superintendent to manage the District’s 11 lowest-performing schools chosen for the federal School Improvement Grant program, effectively creating the Office of Innovation. 

Because of Haggen’s proven success record in restoring academic stability, the District made the conscious choice to add 19 additional low-performing schools under the Office of Innovation to implement comprehensive school improvement models which require significant staff changes, professional development and revamped curriculum to improve student academic achievement.

Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Administration and a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Michigan.

Din Heiman
COO and General Manager
BrainPOP

Since graduating with an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, Din has held multiple management and turnaround positions in education. He joined BrainPOP in 2007 as Chief Operating Officer and General Manager, part of what he refers to as an All Star leadership team that has grown the company's footprint in the K-12 space - at schools, in homes and on-the-go. Prior to that he served for multiple years as a career diplomat, having what he refers to as "the time of his life". He's a skeptic of those who question the potential for innovation in education, and he doesn't react favorably to presentations that claim that education hasn't changed since the advent of the industrial age.

Dr. Nelson B. Heller
President
The HellerResults Group

Nelson Heller is President of the HellerResults Group, which works with US and international educational publishers and service providers, the financial community, foundations, public agencies, academia, industry associations and non-profits to support business development, strategic and tactical planning and partnering, educational entrepreneuring and industry talent development. He was organizing partner and chairman of the AEP/AAP International Markets Forum held in conjunction with the 2012 Content in Context conference in June 2012. His monthly column, View From The HellerResults Group, is carried by the EdNET News Alert, a weekly e-mailed industry news service reaching over 31 thousand education industry execs worldwide. Prior to launching the HellerResults Group in 2011, Nelson Heller was President of EdNET at MDR in the US, a D&B company. The EdNET brand covered publication of the EdNET News Alert, the annual EdNET: Educational Networking Conference, and EdNET Insight, a market intelligence and decision support service. Nelson Heller started The Heller Reports B2B news service and EdNET conferences in 1989 and sold the business to the Quality Education Data (QED) division of Scholastic in 2002. MDR acquired QED in 2009. Dr. Heller has been quoted in the numerous business publications and has spoken at and keynoted at many domestic and international conferences. His annual “View From the Catbird Seat” presentations at EdNET conferences have anticipated countless education market developments by years, including the Internet, online content and service marketplaces, e-books, cloud services and social learning platforms. In 2009 Dr. Heller was inducted into the Association of Educational Publishers’ Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. He is also a recipient of the “Making It Happen” education industry award. He holds two graduate degrees from MIT and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Brenda Joiner Overturf, Ed.D.
President
Literacy Perspectives, LLC

Brenda Joiner Overturf was a 2009-2012 member of the International Reading Association Board of Directors. While on the board of IRA, she chaired a Common Core State Standards Task Force, and continues as chair of the IRA Common Core Standards Committee.

Brenda began her career as a classroom teacher, teaching 18 years at the elementary and middle school levels. She served as the Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) District Reading Coordinator for six years where she lead professional development, program design, standards implementation, curriculum alignment, and assessment systems for K-12 district-wide literacy development. In 2005, she entered a partnership with the University of Louisville to head the graduate program in reading education, where she designed and taught K-12 literacy courses, chaired committees, provided leadership for literacy grants and programs, and served on state literacy task forces and intiatives.

Brenda holds an Ed.D. with a specialty in Literacy Education from the University of Louisville, and as president of Literacy Perspectives, LLC, provides professional development and assistance to schools and districts nationwide. Brenda’s most recent books are: Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary (2013, Stenhouse) and The Common Core: Teaching K-5 Students to Meet the Reading Standards (2013, International Reading Association).

Fady Khairallah
President
MDR

With over 20 years of business leadership and success in driving new business growth through innovation, Fady Khairallah is currently the President of MDR, a D&B Company in Shelton, Connecticut. MDR is a leading provider of sales and marketing solutions for the education sector. Fady brings MDR and its customers extensive experience in marketing, technology, and operations to solve challenging business problems. Before assuming the GM role in April 2005, Fady served as MDR’s COO. Khairallah has driven an accelerated product development process and championed investment in sales and customer support to meet MDR customer needs.

Previously, Fady served as COO of Sound Vision Inc., a VC-backed start-up in Wayland, Massachusetts. Fady was recruited to assist the Chairman in implementing a transition strategy that moved the company’s business focus from a supplier of ASICs to a player in the consumer digital photography market.

In 2000, Fady founded Deligent, a web consultancy focused on creating state-of-the-art CRM systems. Deligent’s client list included Aetna, Johnson & Johnson, Schering Plough, Fidelity, HelpCare, and iPRO Exchange. Deligent developed Answer Center,™ a unique system that captures best-of-class CSR behaviors implemented in a self-service environment.

Before founding Deligent, Fady was Managing Director at Zentropy Partners, where he managed 200% company growth and spearheaded the company’s launch, transition, and integration from several of the Interpublic’s interactive companies, including Hill Holliday Interactive, where he served as Chief Technology Officer. Prior to joining Hill Holliday Interactive, Fady was Chief Technology Officer at SiegelGale.

Among Fady’s proudest achievements is his work as Director of Research and Development for the Associated Press, where he oversaw and designed the conversion of AP’s photo operation to satellite delivery. He was instrumental in the engineering of the first digital news camera in a joint venture with Kodak.

Fady resides in Fairfield County, Connecticut, with his wife Pamela, a reading teacher, and his two school-aged children. Fady holds a B.S. in engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in computer engineering from Syracuse University, and an executive M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. He is fluent in French and Arabic.

Karan Khemka

Mr. Khemka, a member of the firm since 2002, is the Head of Parthenon’s International office which focuses on the emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Mr. Khemka advises clients primarily in the hospitality, education, healthcare, and industrial sectors on growth, product development, and mergers and acquisitions. He is on the Asia Advisory Board for Phillips Academy Andover, is a Senior Advisor to The Asian Women’s Leadership University, and has been published in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and other publications. Mr. Khemka holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Georgetown University and an M.A. in Law from Cambridge University.

Gene Koo
Executive Director
iCivics, Inc.

Gene Koo (Executive Director) has devoted his career to bringing innovation to educational and civic enterprises. Gene works with iCivics’ staff, Board and supporters to educate and engage a new generation of American citizens. His primary focus is on achieving large-scale adoption and long-term sustainability. Prior to iCivics, Gene developed new media strategies to connect nonprofit organizations with their grassroots constituencies. As a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society he brought Web-based innovation into law school classrooms and designed virtual worlds for civic engagement. Gene also co-founded the nation’s first online skills training program for legal aid attorneys. He holds a J.D. and a B.A. from Harvard.

Michael T. Moe
Chairman, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer
GSV Capital Corp.

Michael is an advisor to GSV Advisors and founder of its sister companies GSV Asset Management and GSV Capital. He also publishes a suite of newsletters on the growth economy, including Edu Weekly which focuses on the education market.

Michael has been a leader in championing innovation in education for over twenty years. In 1996, he wrote The Dawn of the Age of Knowledge which accurately foresaw many of the key developments in the industry including online education, charter schools, and global learning. He then published two subsequent influential white papers, The Book of Knowledge and The Knowledge Web. In addition to serving as co-Chairman of the Arizona State Education Innovation Council with ASU President Michael Crow, Michael is on the Board of Directors for ePals, StormWind, and the Center for Education Reform. He is also on the National Advisory Board for Communities in School as well as Board Observer for Grockit, RSmart, and Kno.

Michael is well known and regarded as one of the world's preeminent authorities on growth investing. His insights are routinely solicited by everyone from CNBC to Barron's to Congress. Recognized as one of the best and brightest investors on Wall Street, his honors include Institutional Investor's "All American" research team, The Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" award, and being named by Business Week as "one of the best stock pickers in the country."

He has also written extensively about investing in the emerging growth equity markets. His acclaimed 2006 book Finding the Next Starbucks: How to Identify and Invest in the Hot Stocks of Tomorrow (Penguin Group) details Michael's investment process and philosophy which he's refined over more than two decades in the investment community. A business best-seller, Finding the Next Starbucks has gone through three printings in five languages and been lauded for its insights into investing in premier emerging growth companies.

Prior to starting GSV, Michael co-founded and served as chairman and CEO of ThinkEquity Partners, an asset management and investment banking firm focusing on venture capital, entrepreneurial and emerging growth companies. Before ThinkEquity, he held positions as Head of Global Growth Research at Merrill Lynch and Head of Growth Research and Strategy at Montgomery Securities.

Joseph Olchefske
Former President, Educate Online
Former Superintendent, Seattle (WA) Public Schools

Joseph Olchefske has had very broad leadership experience in the K-12 education arena in the public, non-profit and for-profit sectors. Until recently, he served as President of Educate Online, a Baltimore-based online learning company, where he was responsible for leading a strategic expansion of the company's instructional programs to serve more students in K-12 school districts and higher education institutions. Previously, Olchefske was Managing Director of the American Institutes for Research’s school district consulting practice, which focused on consulting with large urban school systems and state departments of education on large-scale reform strategies. Prior to AIR, Olchefske served as the Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools (SPS) from 1998 to 2003. As SPS superintendent, he served as the chief executive officer of a public school system with 47,000 students, 100 schools, 7,000 employees, and an annual operating budget of $435 million. Before joining SPS, Olchefske spent 12 years as an investment banker in the public finance department at Piper Jaffray in Seattle.

John Oswald
Sr. Vice President & General Manager, K–12 Assessment Programs
ETS

As Vice President and General Manager of K–12 Student Assessment Programs, John
Oswald oversees all of ETS’s K–12 large-scale assessments. His staff manages contracts
for statewide assessments in 10 states, as well as for the Partnership for Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. The
area also provides assessment products and services for the Educational Records Bureau,
the National Catholic Education Association, the Southern Regional Education Board and
California State University. As the lead strategist for Student and Teacher Assessment,
Oswald is responsible for developing synergies between ETS’s student assessment business
and teacher licensure and certification business.

Before joining ETS in July 2002, Oswald worked for 30 years at testing and educational
publishing companies in various roles and areas, including test development and
psychometric research, sales, marketing, customer service, information technology,
operations and general management. He was on the board of directors of the Association of
Test Publishers for nine years, serving two terms as chair and president of that organization.
A frequent spokesperson in the media and presenter at professional conferences, Oswald has
addressed numerous legislative committees and state and local boards of education on the
topic of testing.

Oswald received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and Ph.D. candidacy from Fordham
University, and has taught psychology and testing courses at the college level.

Steve Potash

Steve Potash is President and CEO of OverDrive, Inc., a company he founded in 1986. Under his leadership, OverDrive has become the leading global multichannel digital distributor of eBooks for libraries, schools and booksellers. OverDrive is a key partner to Random House, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin, Lerner Publishing Group, Disney Digital Books, and more than 1,000 US and international trade, educational and academic publishers. Today, OverDrive distributes more than 800,000 copyrighted digital book titles and provides eBook and digital audiobook services for more than 18,000 schools and libraries worldwide – including 3,000 schools and millions of students.

In addition to leading the successful growth of OverDrive in 20 countries worldwide, Steve is well known in the eBook industry as a pioneer who worked tirelessly to help develop the market, create and institute standards, and build the framework for the ecosystem that is in place today. He served on the board and was a founding member of the International Digital Publishing Forum, a standards organization responsible for eBook format and process standards. Prior to OverDrive, Steve was active in the practice of law, serving as Special Counsel to the Ohio Attorney General among other responsibilities.

Steve and his wife Loree Potash (an attorney and former librarian) and their three adult children are all active in digital publishing, education and library activities.

Lou Pugliese
Chairman and CEO
Moodlerooms, Inc.

Over the past twenty years, Pugliese has developed a strong track record managing growth stage businesses and acquiring and developing a number of education organizations. Lou Pugliese is currently Chairman and CEO of Moodlerooms, the largest global provider of open source software and services for eLearning for the K to Workforce markets. Moodlerooms leverages the largest global open source eLearning platform, Moodle, an d has created value added software applications and services for enterprise scale deployment of Moodle.

Prior to Moodlerooms, Pugliese was President of Learning Diagnostics Inc., an education a consulting practice providing strategic planning in Business Intelligence in academic and administrative information architecture.

He was recently vice president of corporate development and company director at Educational Testing Service (ETS). In this capacity, Pugliese led corporate strategy and growth and strategic alliances for the secondary, post secondary, workforce and international education markets.

Prior to his appointment in corporate development, Pugliese served as the vice president of market development, which included marketing, sales, market research, and business development. Prior to this post, he was the CEO of ETS Pulliam, LLC, an ETS K‐12 subsidiary, and vice president of elementary and secondary education products and services where he led ETS's elementary and secondary education product development and customer‐facing activities. These included professional development, technology products and services and assessments. Prior to ETS, Pugliese was an entrepreneur in residence at Novak Biddle Venture Partners, an equity‐financing firm established in 1997 to provide assistance to the management of young, information technology businesses. There he shaped the strategy for private equity investments in early stage educational technology companies.

While working with Novak Biddle, Pugliese was named CEO of AnswerLogic, a software company that delivers online question‐answering solutions for business through its innovative natural language processing technology. Pugliese’s affiliation with Novak Biddle began with the firm’s early stage lead position in Blackboard, Inc., where he was founding CEO. Under Pugliese's leadership, Blackboard experienced 500‐percent annual revenue growth rates, international customer expansion to more than three million individuals teaching and learning on Blackboard, the roll‐out of multiple products and services and attainment over $50 million in private financing.

Pugliese served as vice president and chief operating officer of ETC, a subsidiary of Denver‐based Telecommunications Inc. (TCI). Prior to joining ETC, he was director of marketing and sales with Scholastic New Media in New York, and vice president of Turner Educational Services in Atlanta where he successfully launched CNN Newsroom and a variety of other educational ventures.

Pugliese is active in the Washington, DC regional and national technology communities and serves on the numerous local and regional boards in education‐ and software‐related businesses. Pugliese also served on George W. Bush’s Presidential IT Steering Committee and the Commission on Technology and Adult Learning.

Pugliese is a noted international speaker on educational technology and has addressed a wide range of issues in education and education policy. He and his family reside in Oak Hill, Virginia

Vicki Smith Bigham
EdNET Conference Manager, MDR and
President, Bigham Technology Solutions, Inc.

Vicki Smith Bigham has an extensive background in educational technology, with over 35 years’ experience in public and private school education as a teacher, software developer, school administrator, university professor, and industry consultant.

As President of Bigham Technology Solutions, Inc., she has managed a wide variety of product development, training, meeting planning, and marketing projects and works directly with companies and schools in the ed tech community.

She manages the annual EdNET Conference, sponsored by MDR; serves as Professional Development Director for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN); and is currently working on a variety of professional development and implementation projects. She is a former President of the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), which she helped to found, and a former President of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

David Straus
VP, Products
Kno, Inc.

David leads Kno's product group, which includes product strategy, product management, user experience and support. David has driven marketing and business development for both consumer and enterprise solutions at multiple companies including Hewlett-Packard, OpenVision Technologies (acquired by Symantec), TSW International (acquired by Indus), and OnDemand (acquired by Pega System). David has been actively involved in startups as an executive and investor for the past 20 years. Nearly every Apple product created within the last 6-12 months can be found on David’s desk.

Dan White
Founding Partner and CEO
Filament Games

Dan White is CEO at Filament Games, an educational game design and development studio in Madison, WI. Founded in 2005, Filament’s 50+ title portfolio includes a diversity of STEM, literacy, and civics education games developed for clients such as National Geographic’s JASON Science and Sandra Day O’Connor’s iCivics. Dan holds a BS in communication technologies from Cornell University and an MS in educational communications and technology from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Prior to founding Filament, Dan designed instructional technologies at the UW Division of Information Technology and the Academic ADL Co-Lab. Prior to that he served as production/art lead on the Cornell Theory Center’s NSF-funded SciCentr project, a series of online virtual worlds created for informal science and technology outreach. Dan serves on the advisory board for Games for Change and is a founding member of the GLS (Games Learning Society) organization at UW - Madison.

Susan Wolford
Managing Director and Group Head, Business Services
BMO Capital Markets

Susan Wolford is Managing Director and Group Head of the BMO Capital Markets' Business and Educational Services Group. She has been an investment banker for over 25 years, leading a wide variety of financing and merger-and-acquisition transactions across many industry groups. For the past 12 years, she has focused on the educational services industry, working with prek-12, post-secondary and lifelong learning companies. Prior to joining BMO, Ms. Wolford worked at First Union, where she co-headed the Educational Services Group; she previously spent 11 years in the Investment Banking Department of Kidder, Peabody, where she was a partner and senior vice president in the Media and Entertainment Group. She has served on the Boards of a number of educational institutions, including the Dean’s Advisory Council of Villanova School of Business and the Investment Committee of The Pennington School. Ms. Wolford graduated with honors from Villanova University and a master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, where she was named an International Fellow.

Anne Wujcik
Editor, EdNET Insight, and Education Research Analyst
MDR

Anne Wujcik has more than 25 years of education and publishing experience. She is an Education Research Analyst in MDR’s Market Research department and Managing Editor of the EdNET News Alert. As a Research Analyst, Anne uses her market experience to inform quantitative and qualitative research projects and also conducts focus groups nationwide. As Managing Editor of EdNET News Alert, Anne is responsible for strategic positioning and content development for the newsletter and news alert services, policy analysis, and tracking education market trends. Anne is also part of the EdNET Insight team, MDR’s new research and information service that delivers decision support services to industry leaders.

Anne ran her own consulting firm, helping companies in the education market developing and implementing strategic marketing plans. Anne spent a year as Market Research Director for the Software Publishers Association, now SIIA, and was Director of Research for TALMIS, the leading market research company focused on educational technology use. Anne began her career as an elementary school teacher. She has a master’s degree in early childhood education and supervised early education programs for the state of Georgia.

Duncan Young

Duncan Young leads Scholastic Achievement Partners, a professional services team of over 500 individuals providing professional development, school improvement, and program implementation support to schools and districts across the country.

Duncan began his career as a US naval officer focused on meteorology and oceanography. He spent numerous years in the private sector as a management consultant with Bain & Company, specializing in working with organizations to develop plans for business change and transformation. He has spent seven years with Scholastic in a variety of roles, including oversight of the development, design, and launch of award-winning online instructional resource tools. Duncan has an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina and a graduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Tiffany Hall
K-12 Literacy Coordinator, Teaching and Learning
Utah State Office of Education

Tiffany Hamilton Hall is the K-12 Literacy Coordinator for the Utah State Office of Education. In her position, Tiffany coordinates the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, including a state-wide Core Academy that provides professional learning opportunities for more than 4,000 educators during the summer; online courses and district-level professional learning to support CCSS integration; and coordination of the state's Open Source Textbook program. She has assisted with the development of new Early Childhood Standards, standards for administrator evaluation, and Utah’s new Effective Teaching Standards. Prior to her work at the state office, Tiffany was the Associate Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling (CITES) at Brigham Young University, where she was involved with teacher, teacher-leader, and principal development. Tiffany has been an administrator and teacher in public schools in Utah and California for 20 years.

John Lopez
Managing Director, Instructional Materials and Educational Technology
Texas Education Agency

John Lopez is the Managing Director for the division of Instructional Materials and Educational Technology at the Texas Education Agency. He has worked in the education field for over 30 years beginning with the Austin Independent School District producing professional development programs for teachers and administrators. He has been with the Texas Education Agency since 1991 and has worked primarily with Educational Technology. His knowledge and experience with technology is beneficial to districts in Texas as they become more involved with instructional materials in a digital environment. The 82nd Texas Legislative Session transformed the state processes with instructional materials by providing districts an allotment to purchase instructional materials, technology services and equipment. John has been involved with the state-wide implementation of the instructional materials allotment which provides more options for classroom instruction.

Bruce Shealy
Accounting/Fiscal Manager I
South Carolina Department of Education

Bruce Shealy is the Instructional Materials Manager for the South Carolina Department of Education. Mr. Shealy has been employed with the SC Department of Education for 23 years. From 1989 until 1996, he held the position of textbook accountant keeping track of the state owned inventory for each of the 1200 schools. From 1996 until 2010, he was an auditor, auditing state funds within school districts. In June 2010, he became the Instructional Materials Manager for the state and is responsible for managing the state instructional materials budget and for purchasing and distribution of all state adopted instructional materials, printed or electronic versions, to each school throughout the state.

Alma Simpson
Coordinator of Instructional Resources, Office of Instruction
West Virginia Department of Education

Alma Simpson is the Coordinator of Instructional Resources at the West Virginia Department of Education. While her primary responsibility is to organize and oversee the review and adoption of instructional resources, she also works with content specialists in the Office of Curriculum and Instruction to develop resources and deliver professional development aligned to the Next Generation Content Standards and Objectives, West Virginia’s term for the Common Core State Standards. Although Alma has spent the majority of her career as an English Language Arts teacher, she has also worked as a curriculum coach and technology integration specialist. This experience led to a position at the WVDE where she launched a program to train teachers of special education to effectively integrate technology. Teachers who successfully complete the program qualify for a Technology Integration Specialist credential. In her current position, Alma facilitates the transition of instructional materials from the traditional print format to interactive electronic resources. To accomplish this she led the work to revise State Code and Board of Education Policy to make the adoption process more applicable to publishers of electronic instructional materials. The revisions allow for the adoption of instructional resources on a subscription basis, adoption of open education resources, and the review of newly developed materials during off cycle years. An additional policy change postponed the adoption of all instructional materials for two years to allow counties the opportunity to use instructional materials funds to strengthen their respective technology infrastructures in preparation for computer adaptive assessment and the adoption of electronic instructional resources.