Current Post-Baccalaureate Fellows
Meet the current and previous post-baccalaureate fellows.
2023 – 2025 Fellows
2021 – 2023 Fellows
Tselot Aklilu
As a post-baccalaureate fellow, I work to support the Center for Postsecondary Innovation’s strategic visioning process and provide administrative support for projects like the development of a postsecondary hub in partnership with the African Leadership University. I also support the Practical Measurement for Improvement (PMI) team on creating a compendium of blogs, technical papers, and video logs that will serve as a resource for improvement practitioners. Additionally, I am on the Organizational Learning and Summit teams. Prior to joining Carnegie, I received a B.A. in Politics and Africana Studies from Scripps College.
Ana Rael
As a fellow, I assist on several of the foundation’s teams, including the foundation’s strategic priorities, our organizational learning initiative, and the social media team. I also support the foundation’s Summit on Improvement in Education marketing team by developing graphics, analyzing data and analytics, and drafting strategy. Before my position at Carnegie, I received a B.A. in sociology with a minor in education studies from Barnard College of Columbia University.
To contact a current fellow, please email PostBacFellowship@CarnegieFoundation.org and include the fellow’s name in the subject line.
Previous Fellows
Angel Bohannon
As the post-baccalaureate bellow for Carnegie Math Pathways, I supported community college leaders and faculty leaders in spreading and scaling the Pathways. I graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in public policy.
Natalie Bold
Natalie was the liaison between the network instructors and the Foundation. She provided holistic support to the faculty by leading monthly check-in calls, ensuring online materials were error-free and accessible, welcoming new members into the network, and resolving issues as they came up. She enjoyed working directly with the faculty and strove to incorporate their voice into all of her work. Natalie attended Seattle University, where she studied economics and development.
Melissa Bowden
As a post-baccalaureate fellow in communications, I managed social media, design graphic elements for presentations and outreach, and supported the team in our efforts to bring improvement work to life through written and visual media. My work also involved supporting social media, material design, and video editing for events including the Spotlight on Continuous Improvement in Education and the Carnegie Summit. I have a passion for story theory and the power of storytelling to illustrate improvement journeys in a tangible way. Before my time at Carnegie, I earned a bachelor’s degree in English and communications from the University of Massachusetts, a combination I like to term “new media storytelling.”
Cierra Cooper
As a networked improvement science post-baccalaureate fellow, I supported the Foundation with field-building initiatives, specifically with professional education course development and new business inquiries. Before Carnegie, I graduated from Seattle Pacific University with degrees in psychology and political science. After graduation, I spent two years serving in the Seattle School District where I used climate data to track discipline and attendance disproportionality to help close opportunity gaps for Seattle students. My interests include strategic planning, education policy, and equity-centered student and community activism.
Kenneth Fernandez
As the post-baccalaureate fellow for collaborative technology, I provided support for information and user management across the Pathways networks and within the foundation. Before joining the Carnegie Foundation, I attended the University of California, Irvine where I focused on the development of educational iPad games for children as I pursued a degree in studio art with minors in digital arts and education. Also prior to Carnegie, I worked as a graphic designer for a marketing company in Salinas, California.
Leandra Fernandez
As the materials development post-baccalaureate fellow, I will be working extensively to incorporate the lesson materials and out-of-class exercises of the Community College Pathways into the online platform. I have also enjoyed writing and editing lesson components and will continue to do so in preparation for a new release next year. Before joining Carnegie Foundation I studied biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University
Stephanie Hironaka
At the Carnegie Foundation, Stephanie greatly enjoyed working with the improvement science team on research that is designed to improve practice and that has real applications for practitioners. This included supporting Pathways networked improvement communities faculty in running iterative inquiry cycles in their classrooms, and using formative assessment data to drive curricular improvements. Stephanie graduated with a BA in linguistics from Stanford University, where she conducted research in linguistically diverse classrooms to inform culturally relevant pedagogy.
Hai Hoang
As a post-baccalaureate fellow, I supported the analytics needs for the Carnegie Math Pathways. My role comprised data manipulation, analysis, and visualization. I graduated with a BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and have been an online course assistant for the Greater Good Science Center located in Berkeley.
Joanna Huang
As the former collaborative technology post-baccalaureate fellow, Joanna provided support for user and data management across the Pathways networks and the foundation itself. She worked on two major projects: 1) to ideate design principles for recreating classroom face to face teaching concepts to the online environment via a digital platform and 2) to deploy a new collaborative platform to facilitate better communication and collaboration among internal and external users. Joanna graduated from UC San Diego with a degree in cognitive science with a specialization in human computer interaction and a minor in public service-social issues track.
Melrose Huang
I collaborated with the analytics team to organize, analyze and visualize institutional data from Carnegie’s NIC partners. During my time here, I have greatly enjoyed working on the issue of education reform under a quantitative lens. Prior to joining the post-baccalaureate program, I majored in psychology/political science at Emory University and served preschool classrooms as a Jumpstart Corps Member.
Lillian Kivel
Working with the communications team, I have been excited to aid with the development and creation of a completely new website for the Carnegie Foundation to better capture our current work and its impact. It has been a fantastic opportunity to development new skills and get to learn about all aspects of the foundation’s work. In May 2013, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in Social Anthropology with a focus on education in China.
Iris Lopez
Iris’ favorite project as a previous fellow was creating a video tour that is used to onboard new instructors in the Community College Pathways program. This video is an overview of class activities that are geared toward reducing the non-cognitive barriers that exist for students in developmental math courses. She really enjoyed the opportunity to share what productive persistence is all about in a way that will have a substantial impact in the classroom and for the Pathways program overall. Iris majored in psychology at Harvard University prior to joining the Carnegie Foundation in July as the productive persistence post-baccalaureate fellow.
Haley McNamara
Haley McNamara was a post-baccalaureate fellow for Advancing Quality Teaching (AQT) at the Carnegie Foundation. She earned a BS in psychology from UCLA in the summer of 2014, and focused her undergraduate thesis work on the intersection of psychology and education within the context of college-level mathematics classrooms. At the Foundation, Haley split her time between 1. working alongside Ann Edwards and Dan Ray in applying improvement science methodology to the faculty support program, and 2. Serving as a team lead for Staying Strong alongside Rachel Beattie.
Amanda Meyer
As a post-baccalaureate fellow working primarily with the Building a Teaching Effectiveness Network, I have learned a lot about improvement science and how it can be applied to educational issues I feel passionate about. One of my most rewarding experiences so far has been to work on a 90 Day-Cycle research project and then “test” our early findings with a group of 35 school leaders at our network meeting. I really enjoyed interacting with the practitioners and hearing their responses to our work. Before joining Carnegie, I taught high school ESL for two years with Teach For America in San Antonio, Texas.
Kiya Mirmozaffari
As the post-baccalaureate fellow for network development, I worked closely with the Carnegie Math Pathways program and the analytics team to coordinate communication and collaboration between the Carnegie Foundation and its network partners. Previously, I was a laboratory coordinator at the Laboratory for the Neurodevelopment of Reading and Language at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Thieny Nguyen
As the external offerings and partnerships (XOP) post-baccalaureate fellow, I supported the coordination and communication in the Foundation’s network offerings such as the Learning Lab, Higher Education Network, California Networks, and Summit on Improvement in Education. Prior to Carnegie, I graduated from the University of California, San Diego and worked as a program associate in Oakland focusing on college access and success.
Shannon Palka
As a post-baccalaureate fellow in project management and program support, I supported the trainings and workshops to help educators and administrators around the country build their capacity for learning to improve. Before Carnegie, I graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in English and spent two years working with the California State University system office as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and Leader.
Madeleine Pierson
As a post-baccalaureate fellow working under project management and program support, I supported the development of networks through communication, logistics, and knowledge management. Through my work I enjoyed learning about the processes involved in network initiation, supporting and sustaining the work of Networked Improvement Communities (NICs), and about improvement science as it is implemented on the ground by educational practitioners. Prior to joining Carnegie, I received my bachelor’s degree in American studies from Scripps College, and worked as a program coordinator for a non-profit providing after school programming to LAUSD students and families.
Carlos Sandoval
I have really enjoyed helping with the development of our hybrid/online faculty preparation program. (A bit of background: Because the Community College Pathways include different curriculum [it’s not just a curriculum, but it is one component], there was a need to help teachers in our network’s community colleges to teach these Pathways. That’s what this faculty preparation program is.) Its development is ongoing but it’s been a lot of fun so far, and I’m really excited to find out what actual faculty think about it. Prior to Carnegie, I majored in psychology at UCLA and worked under Karen Givvin — one of our external partners— as an undergraduate research assistant.
Allison Stone
At Carnegie, Allison worked on Quantway and Statway curriculum and materials development within the Community College Pathways program. She enjoyed writing several lessons and assessment items for students to use within the course. Allison studied math, psychology, and theatre at the George Washington University in Washington, DC and did some graduate coursework in math education at Columbia Teachers College.
Emily Supple
As a post-baccalaureate communications fellow, I managed our social media channels, developed communication plans for our work, and supported the Educative Communications group in amplifying Carnegie’s projects and partnerships to our various audiences. I also supported social media and email marketing campaigns for our events including the Spotlight on Continuous Improvement in Education and the Summit on Improvement in Education conference. Before starting at Carnegie, I received a B.A. in political science with a concentration in sociology and education studies from Barnard College of Columbia University.
Carina Traub
As a post-baccalaureate fellow in project management and program support, I supported two main projects: the Summit on Improvement in Education and Carnegie’s partnership with the California County Offices of Education (CA COE). For the Summit, I worked primarily in registration, sponsorships, and outreach. For CA COE, I supported the planning and execution of improvement science trainings in Southern, Central, and Northern California. I also explored how systems thinking and education policy can increase equity in education. Prior to Carnegie, I graduated from Boston University, where I studied English, English education, and English as a second language.
Camila Velasquez
As a post-baccalaureate fellow in networked improvement science, I supported the Foundation’s higher education field building efforts and learning resource projects. I was involved in the development of a repository of improvement science teaching materials and in the coordination of two initiatives to further integrate improvement science into education leadership programs. Before Carnegie, I graduated from Kenyon College with a degree in anthropology and served as a Princeton in Latin America fellow in Mexico, where I worked on instructor training and course evaluation and design.
Hannah Weissler
As a post-baccalaureate fellow in the Collaborative Technology group, I worked to make sure Carnegie’s online platforms are effectively promoting engagement and collaboration among our networks. Specifically, using agile processes, I supported the team’s efforts to improve our users’ technical and interactive experiences. I enjoyed learning how these networks utilize data and collaboration in their approach to educational improvement. Prior to joining Carnegie, I received a B.A. in political science from Scripps College.
Nicholas Zurlo
As the Student Agency Improvement Community (SAIC) post-baccalaureate fellow, I supported the knowledge management, analytics, improvement science, research, logistics, and program improvement of SAIC. Every day I had the opportunity to tackle the challenge of working to learn, test, and disseminate best practices informed by psychological research, while staying user-centered by always keeping practitioners in the forefront of the work. Prior to Carnegie, I graduated from James Madison University where I pursued my BS in psychology with a minor in statistics.