Meet the Team

Richard has a PhD in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, and is the Product Lead and a co-founder of Learning Equality. Richard’s dissertation research focused on the impact of forgetting on the time course of effective Mathematics learning. Prior to co-founding Learning Equality, Richard spent 3 years as a Secondary Science Teacher in the United Kingdom and 2 years as an educational consultant, working in K-12 schools in New Jersey and New York, training teachers in Problem-Based Learning, Educational Technology, and Student-Centered Teaching.

Micah believes that offline-first technologies can reinvigorate our sense of the unique and limitless possibilities that emerge when people come together in local spaces. He's interested in understanding how these technologies might even help us cultivate a more equitable, enjoyable, and sustainable world for everyone. Micah is from South Minneapolis, where he lives to this day and enjoys exploring in nature with friends, making music, and learning about science. He attended the University of Minnesota for Sociology, Physics, and Math, and since graduating has worked as a computer programmer, artist, construction worker, and piano teacher.

Jamie graduated with a PhD in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego in 2014, and is co-founder of several educational technology platforms, including thisCourse, ESL Genie, and KA Lite. He loves taking things apart and putting them back together again, eating delicious vegan food, and thinking about what an awesome world he lives in and how to make it even better. He has crawled through the tunnels of Knossos, but didn’t find the Minotaur.

Khang is a designer with a background in Human-Computer Interaction and education studies. He’s always looking for opportunities to learn and apply great design towards a helpful cause. On his spare time he enjoys reading, rock climbing, and illustrating.

Sarah is inspired by all the educators who change lives through joyful and meaningful learning experiences. Rooted by her commitment to help all people access their best learning experiences, she has worked in a variety of program and operations management roles with education nonprofits over the past decade. Sarah relishes unhurried meals over great conversation, long meandering hikes, and discovering new music with friends.

Jacob is a full-stack developer, new father, cat-parent of three, and all-around nerd. He believes that education and open access to it is one of the best paths toward creating a better world.

Jonathan, who also goes by the convenient two-syllable shorthand of "JB", is a software developer and one of those rare creatures known as a "San Diego native". Before returning to his hometown and undergraduate university (UCSD) to work at Learning Equality, he was living around United States, working as a developer for companies big and small. Coming from a Philosophy, Linguistics, and Mathematics background, JB always desires to do the right thing, expressed in the most beautiful way, and executed in the most rigorous manner. In his free time, JB enjoys playing with his cats, making smoothies, watching Korean TV shows, and training to become a strong rock climber.

Navya brings her experience of working with schools, social organizations, and the government in India to her present role at Learning Equality. She is a Teach for India alumna and is deeply passionate about bridging the gap in education. She spends her free time planning for travel to different corners of the world and lives to eat.

Devon is an engineer and designer with experience in software, electronics, and fabrication. He enjoys tackling problems from both a human and a technology perspective.

Vahid Masrour joined Learning Equality in 2020, assisting with Kolibri’s content shepherding. A world citizen, he has resided in 7 countries thus far and speaks 4 languages. His interest in the edtech field started with the Internet and the questions that he currently spends a lot of time on are: How should educational systems adapt to the 21st century? How do we foster the competencies that will enable world-civilization building? He has been a Wikipedia+Education volunteer since 2013, and an open education advocate. He has also been known to enjoy pc gaming since before wifi was a thing.

Jordan graduated from UCSD with a major in computer science and minors in cognitive science and education studies. She believes education has the power to transform lives and is excited to be a part of bringing it to people around the world. When she is not programming, she enjoys dancing, drawing, and playing the piano.

Casey joined Learning Equality after holding a wide variety of roles within software development and operations. He is currently a member of the infrastructure team, helping to ensure the stability of a service that is used by educators in countries that span the globe. An inveterate traveler, Casey has lived in Mexico, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic, where he served as a Peace Corps volunteer. There he dealt with the challenges of using computers in classrooms lacking infrastructure. That service lends a strong, personal significance to his work at Learning Equality.

Jess is a recent college grad whose interest in social media started when she observed its power for social justice blogging against Islamophobia. In her free time, Jess enjoy studying South Asian genealogy and is currently in Phase 2 of an independent research project studying Punjabi Sikh identity in the US. Jess live in Chicago with her two cats. She's excited to work in Comms with LE as a self-taught graphic designer.

Lauren brings her passion to Learning Equality of working together to support innovations to break down barriers to education so all children and youth have their right to quality education realized. Her work aims to uphold human rights, ranging from supporting the work of corporates engaging in education to fighting crime by investigating international financial movements. Lauren holds a M.A. in International Educational Development with a focus on Peace Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a B.A. in Comparative Politics and a Certificate in African Students from Princeton University. She reps the Learning Equality team on the East Coast in New York.

Rosanna supports the Learning Equality team while they stay laser-focused on Kolibri and its users. Rosanna has a background in nonprofit people management and operations. She comes to Learning Equality from 7 years at DonorsChoose.org supporting public school teachers throughout the US as they dreamed up the best possible classroom experience for their students. She’s thrilled to join Learning Equality to expand her focus to the global community’s access to the basic human right of education. New to San Diego, on her weekends you might find her exploring coffee shops with a book in hand or yelling at the TV - that is, joyfully cheering - for her hometown soccer team.

Blaine is a San Diego native who loves JavaScript, Physics, and all things web. Blaine graduated with a degree in Applied Physics from CSU San Marcos, where he also spent time as a Learning Assistant (LA). His love for education and self-improvement was established through the LA opportunity as well as during his time at a local web company, TakeLessons.com. In his free time, Blaine likes to play board/video games with friends, go to movies, and look at "doggo" pics on Instagram. He's also a Corgi fanatic.

Marcella is a software developer based in Brooklyn who is less than 4 years away from achieving the coveted status of “being a New Yorker”. She studied Political Science and Sociology at Middlebury College and then transitioned to engineering. She’s built software and websites at UNICEF Innovation, Census Open Innovation Labs, and a college counseling consultancy. She joined Learning Equality to bring together her interests in education technology and open source software. Marcella spends her free time cooking, knitting poorly, reading magical realism, and wandering around her neighborhood seeking out dogs to pet.

Based in Barcelona (Spain) at the moment, in the middle of her graduate degree in Digital Content Management, Radina is a technology enthusiast and a Jill-of-all-trades permanently searching for new challenges. She has lived and worked in four different countries, but keeps carrying with herself a love for science museums, photography, walking, cacti & succulent plants... Having a passion for knowledge sharing made her feel at home since the first day she started contributing to making KA Lite more accessible for everybody. When not checking various a11y tips & tricks, she is working on her next visit to The Big Island to see the latest Kilauea flow.

Aron graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in Management Information Systems. He's worked for a carpooling app, a telecommunications company, and a restaurant marketing firm, but found that his passion lies in helping people become the best they can be. That has led to 6 happy years at Learning Equality's development and infrastructure team. His day consists of dreaming up (and implementing!) server and data architecture to keep Kolibri flying. Originally from the Philippines, Aron spends his weekends cycling around San Diego and pawning noobs on Starcraft 2.

David is a software engineer, currently focused on managing the team's cloud infrastructure. His recent projects aim to improve the developer experience and online stability of Kolibri, and many of LE's other products. He has contributed to LE's work in various capacities, having progressed from a design intern to a UI-focused software engineer, he settled into his current role after recognizing the interesting design problems inherent to the distributed architectures he works on today. David earned his degrees in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Science at UC San Diego. After developing his skills in problem-solving and User-Centered Design, he tries to carry these methodologies into all of his work -- no matter how much technical gibberish is involved. Learning Equality's commitment to equity in education aligns with David's belief in lifelong learning and fosters the desire for justice he developed as a child of immigrant parents. He's honored to work with the brilliant friends he's made here, and looks forward to furthering the mission in any way he can. Outside the office, David is usually neck-deep in some kind of story: he thirsts for the immersion offered by books, games, movies, and podcasts. He's loves exploring -- whether it's the libraries' stacks or the city's latest offerings. David has also been known to obsessively research bizarrely mundane subjects, making him an unreliable resource for fun facts.

Carine is a Brazilian-Australian whose life has been defined by the belief that education is the way not only to a purposeful and fulfilled life, but more importantly, to a more equitable, dignified, and just society. Curious by nature, her path has been particularly winding. She has worked in Print and Digital Media, TV, Film, Fashion, and Education. She survived cancer, lived on four continents, and learned how to speaks four languages fluently. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Media & Communications with a major in French Studies from UNSW, and is both a Certified Translator and an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. At Learning Equality, Carine spends her time leading our Latin American & Caribbean implementations, working with the communications team across all facets of the organization, and managing the internationalization (i18n) community she's helped build over the years. Her passions include but are hardly limited to film buffery, pilates, experimentation with plant-based diets, and optimistic-but-so-far-failed attempts at mastering the crow asana. She also loves dancing and knows the words to more cheesy 80's tunes than she'd like to admit.

I am passionate towards using research and human centered design to address the challenges in providing access to quality education to children. I graduated in Product Design and am a Teach For India Alumna. I firmly believe that access to quality education equips children with the knowledge, skills and mindsets to become the future change makers and world citizens. I am interested in leveraging my skills and experience as a designer and as an educator to solve this pressing issue of educational inequality around the world.

Michaela considers education to be one of the best tools for solving many social and environmental problems. She deeply believes in cooperation, volunteering, and open source. Before she finally arrived at Learning Equality, she had been trying to find a meaningful job, so after her first job in a corporate, she moved through various development positions in Czech startups focusing on energy monitoring or medical education. She also worked as an intranet developer for Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Michaela is currently located in the Czech Republic. She is a dedicated Zen practitioner who is very grateful for being a part of the Learning Equality family and for having so many opportunities to express herself through our common vision.

Laura is energized by the dual goals of creating equitable access to educational resources and utilizing technology to help meet the needs of all learners. At Learning Equality she drives strategy for engaging with our grassroots community and supports development of our teacher training model. She received her B.S.Ed. in Human Development and Psychological Services from Northwestern University, her Ed.M in Language and Literacy from Harvard University, and has previously taught elementary school in Chicago. She spends her free time reading, long distance running, and trying not to burn her oatmeal in the oven.

Shivi is interested in connecting unconventional educational materials to unconventional educational needs, especially in the areas of history, literature, and the visual arts. Her background is in monitoring and evaluation for civic education projects in the developing world. She grew up in Michigan, enjoys reading, art history, musicals, and dancing, and is an avid baseball spectator who is also unfortunately terrified of projectiles.

Having worked for the last decade in urban education, Sairina has seen the effects of a transformative education in her students’ lives. With experience as a teacher, teacher coach, and school leader, she is excited to make a pivot to focus on educational technology as a software developer to expand the impact that having access to educational resources can have on entire communities.

Massa Mufti has 20+ years of experience in various arenas in the field of Education in the US, Lebanon and Syria. Massa's work at Learning Equality centers around the Arabic Curriculum library. In addition, she is the founder of SONBOLA, an NGO that provides education support for vulnerable and refugee children in Lebanon since 2014 and the Education Consultant at ESCWA. Massa’s work is mostly focused on education policies, NFE, curriculum development, and teachers’ training in crisis context. Most recently, Massa developed a new initiative, the Refugee Teachers’ Academy (RTA), a progressive leadership program currently its inception phase. In addition to holding two Master Degrees, Massa has a certified training in Education in Emergencies-INEE (Beirut, 2013), a certified training on Executive Management and Leadership from Harvard Business School (2011), and certified training on Project Zero from Harvard Graduate School of Education (July, 2017) among others. Massa is a Harvard’ MEPLI Fellow for the year 2019.

José is an Engineer and proud teacher. Previously, he was in charge of the development of LinEx (Linux educative distro) that was installed in thousands of computers in the schools in Extremadura (Spain) when few people knew free software exists. Passionate about technology, he has continued teaching and working with all kind of technologies, from robotics to web development, hoping to help build a better world. The only things able to move him away from the computer are his family and a nice sunny trip

Jessica is an L.A. native and has a background in Cognitive Science (B.S.) and Sociology (B.A.) from UCSD. While a student, she was introduced to UX and Product Design. She became interested in ethical and equitable approaches to building technology and is driven by the positive impact that can have on our world. She joined Learning Equality as an intern in 2014 and transitioned to full time in 2015. Since then, she’s striven to improve craft, process, and ways to collaborate to design products that empower learners and educators around the world. In her spare time, she likes trying new recipes, road trips with friends, dance, and expanding her musical tastes.

Kevin Ollivier has been developing software for the web, desktops, and mobiles for nearly 20 years. He also has a passion for learning how the mind works, and learning how to craft exciting learning experiences. When it comes time to unwind, he’s most likely to be playing video games, catching up on the latest superhero shows and Japanese anime, or reading books.