I’m happy to share the news that that on Sept. 01 2018, I will begin a new appointment as the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) working with the innovation team, faculty and staff at Illinois’s leading learning academy (Grades 10-12) ~ the Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA).
Dubbed “Hogwarts for Hackers” by Wired Magazine, and recently ranked by Niche.com as the No. 1 “Best Public High School in the USA“, IMSA fosters youth and educational innovators who advance a broad range of fields and industries including alums who served as founders or founding team members of Netscape, PayPal, YouTube, Yelp, and OkCupid. Every day the faculty and students are developing ideas, working on leading science and social projects and creating amazing student-led cultural shows and media productions
If you don’t know about IMSA (you will shortly from me), it is a very unique place for youth learning and educational innovation, led by an amazing community of people! Adult and student alike.
I am honored to have been appointed and entrusted to collaborate with the academy’s leadership, faculty and staff and to work closely with the amazing innovation team, Betty Hart, Sue Fricano, and Erik Swanson; and IMSA’s Outreach team, led by Dr. Norman Storm Robinson III, to continue to foster as well as develop innovative and entrepreneurial programming and learning experiences at/by IMSA for youth and educators alike. It takes a team.
Working out of IN2, the academy’s $1.9 M, 6,400 square foot state-of-the-art ‘Center for Innovation and Inquiry’ in Aurora, Illinois (see below), we work across the academy with faculty and staff, with industry partners and partner schools to explore and seed innovative and entrepreneurial ways to foster learning experiences that develop scientific, critical, ethical and design thinking, tackle real-world problems and with equity and excellence at the heart … inspire the next generation of youth leaders and educators to significantly advance the human condition. It takes a vision.
I’m incredibly grateful to everyone at IMSA who has made this past year as a Research Fellow incredibly enriching, and supportive, and for welcoming me into this new role as a member of the IMSA team. I’m looking forward to seeing where this next chapter takes all of us at IMSA ~ A community of very intelligent, caring and scientific driven souls, as we learn, share and innovate. It takes a community.
You can read more about IMSA: https://www.imsa.edu/
