ATLIS Pillar Awards

ATLIS Pillar Award Winners

ATLIS Pillar Award Winners Please find below a list of our ATLIS Pillar Award winners. Learn more about nominating candidates, which typically happens early in the calendar year.

2025 Awardees

Tahare “Tye” Campbell, TLIS

Director of Strategic Information and Innovation at Gilman School

Campbell is the Director of Strategic Information and Innovation at Gilman School, a PK-12 independent school in Baltimore, Maryland. He has worked in various roles at Gilman School since 2016, including Director of Technology. In his current role, Campbell oversees the integration of technology in the classroom and in the back office, and the merged technology and library departments. He is also responsible for strategic planning related to all technology infrastructure design, classroom technology, faculty and staff professional development, school data, and technology budgeting.

Campbell is a proven leader in the independent school community. He was a faculty member for the ATLIS Leadership Institute for four years, and he served on the ATLIS Board of Directors from 2018 to 2024. He is also a member of the ATLIS Certification Council, through which he supported the creation and launch of the ATLIS Technology Leader in Independent Schools (TLIS) certification.

He is also a member of the Association of Independent Maryland and DC Schools (AIMS) and has served on several AIMS Accreditation Visiting Teams.

Campbell is a strong advocate for the use of technology to improve teaching and learning. He is also a passionate believer in the power of collaboration and shared, mission-aligned goals. He is a valuable asset to the entire independent school community.

Joseph Carver

Associate Head of School at The Meadows School

Carver's career started as a director of debate, and his passion for technology led him to become the director of technology at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami, Florida, where he spearheaded numerous initiatives to modernize the school's infrastructure.

Carver is a seasoned and accomplished leader in the independent school industry, with over 25 years of experience. Currently serving as the associate head of school at The Meadows School in Las Vegas, Nevada, Carver's career has been marked by a commitment to innovation, technology integration, and faculty development.

At The Meadows School, Carver was the chief innovation officer, overseeing all aspects of technology, faculty development, and student services. His leadership and vision were instrumental in driving innovation and ensuring the school remained at the forefront of educational technology. During this tenure as CIO, he founded the Meadows Teaching Cohort, The Meadows School Teaching and Learning Conference and a partnership with the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. In 2024, He was promoted to associate head of school at The Meadows School where he continues to serve as a leader in both his school and the broader independent school community.

Carver was one of the earliest participants in the ATLIS Leadership Institute and continued volunteering as a mentor for future cohorts. He strongly advocates for technology professionals and is deeply committed to the ATLIS community, regularly volunteering his time and expertise.

Alex Podchaski, TLIS

Chief Technology Officer and Applied Science and Engineering Department Chair at Trinity Preparatory School of Florida

Podchaski is a dedicated and accomplished educational technology leader with a passion for innovation and a commitment to advancing technology integration in education. Currently serving as the Chief Technology Officer and Applied Science and Engineering Department Chair at Trinity Preparatory School of Florida, Alex has a proven track record of success in leading and implementing technology initiatives that enhance students' learning experiences.

Throughout his career, Podchaski has worked to advance technology integration throughout each school's curriculum and processes. He has led initiatives that include developing and expanding 1:1 devices programs, renovating and constructing buildings and classrooms to include updated technology infrastructure, implementing hybrid learning and training during the pandemic, achieving Apple Distinguished School certification, developing new curriculums for professional development and student instruction, and taking a lead role in developing multiple policies and procedures that improved day-to-day technology operations. Throughout all of this, he has focused on giving back to the community and sharing best practices gained through his experiences.

Podchaski's commitment to professional development and his contributions to the educational technology community are extensive. He has achieved multiple technology certifications, culminating in the TLIS certification in 2024. He has worked on multiple ATLIS task forces, including Cybersecurity and AI, has acted as a mentor for the ATLIS Leadership Institute, and is a frequent participant in ATLIS webinars and programs. He has presented at national conferences and organized regional school conferences and edcamps. He is also an Apple Learning Coach and an FPF Student Privacy program graduate. He is also the co-founder and moderator of #EdTechChat, a long-running professional development discussion on social media for the global ed tech community.

2024 Awardees

Elizabeth Helfant

Dean of Curriculum and Instruction, Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School

Elizabeth Helfant Helfant is dean of curriculum and instruction at Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School (MICDS), a junior K–12 school of 1,250 students in St. Louis, Missouri. Following graduation from Davidson College in 1984, Helfant began her career in education teaching chemistry, physics, and mathematics. She has been in education for 34 years, 23 of which have been at MICDS. She played an integral role in implementing a 1-to-1 tablet program in grades 7–12 at MICDS. She recognized that proper use of technology to advance learning required shifts in pedagogy and assessment and helped MICDS look more deeply at the strategies being utilized in the classroom. Helfant has presented at numerous conferences, including the International Society for Technology in Education, American School of Bombay (ASB) Unplugged, the Lausanne Laptop Institute, and Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools. She presents on a wide range of topics, including exploring best practices in assessment, teaching skills with technology, using brain research in the classroom, and designing student-centered curriculum, engagement strategies, design thinking, and STEM education. Helfant is also well-versed in designing and delivering professional development for faculty and connecting it to faculty growth aligned to either Danielson’s or Marzano’s frameworks. She has worked as a consultant for the past 15 years with Educational Collaborators and Consilience Learning, providing workshops and conducting school audits. Her past work also includes teaching online courses for ASB, the Online School for Girls, and Global Online Academy.

Matt Scully

Director of Digital Integration and Innovation, Providence Day School

Matt Scully Scully, director of digital integration and innovation at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina, has served as an accreditation chair for the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS), a faculty member in the early years for the ATLIS Leadership Institute (ALI), and an instructor for SAIS Institute for New Teachers, supporting teachers over the past 12 summers. Scully started his career as a middle school teacher for Fowler School District in Phoenix, where he taught a bit of everything — science, pre-algebra, civics, reading, and English. This experience helped him develop an interest in how learning works. His borderline obsession with the art of teaching and the science of learning intersected with emerging technologies and led to a fascination with building the best possible learning environments. A new position as the school district’s director of technology led him to finding his role at Providence Day School, where he has had the good fortune to work for the past 25 years. While at Providence Day School, he earned a master’s of educational technology leadership from the Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. He is truly appreciative of the network of colleagues and his seven magnificent tech team members who support the school’s roughly 1,900 students and 350 faculty and staff.

Shandor Simon

Director of Technology, Beaver Country Day School

Shandor Simon Simon has spent the past 30 years working at the intersection of technology and education, helping students and faculty understand and navigate the increasingly digitized world around them. In 2021, he joined Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, as the director of technology, building a new technology team and launching its computational thinking initiative. Before that, Simon worked for 22 years at the Latin School of Chicago, where he founded and developed its computer science department, which provides instruction for all its students from junior kindergarten through high school. He is also a senior collaborator for Educational Collaborators. In this capacity, he helped establish its cybersecurity assessment offering. Simon served on the advisory boards of Blackbaud (K12), WhippleHill, and CybatiWorks. He also helped found and was a board member of CS4IL, a computer science advocacy nonprofit; served as the president of the Chicago chapter of the Computer Science Teacher Association; and was a board member for Lake Michigan Area Independent Schools. In the public education sphere, he served as the facilities steering committee member for Komarek School District 94 in Illinois and currently serves as an elected school committee member for the Nashoba Regional School District in Massachusetts. Simon is on the ATLIS DEI Advisory Committee, contributed to the new ATLIS credentialing program, and helped with the ATLIS Cybersecurity Recommendations. He was the Conference Committee chair for the ATLIS 2020 Annual Conference and a mentor and coach for several ATLIS Early Career and Aspiring Technology Directors and ALI participants.

2023 Awardees

Peter Antupit

CIO, Crystal Springs Uplands School

Peter Antupit is an experienced educator who began his career at The Landmark School, a residential school for dyslexic students located in Manchester, Massachusetts. During his seven-year tenure at Landmark, Antupit taught math, language arts, woodshop, and computer science. With a deep passion for the end user’s experience, he pursued an Ed.M. from The Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a concentration in Technology in Education (TIE).

After completing his graduate studies, Antupit became the director of technology at Nashoba Brooks School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he served for 15 years as a mentor and leader to students, faculty, and staff. In 2012, he moved to California to join the team at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California, where he started as the director of technology and was later promoted to CIO. In his current role, Antupit continues his focus on simplifying and streamlining the technology experience for faculty, administrative staff, students, and families.

In addition to his work at Crystal Springs Uplands School, Antupit has been a faculty member of the ATLIS Leadership Institute (formerly known as ECATD) program since its inception in 2016. Through this program, he shares his experience and expertise with a focus on relationship building, independent school structures, and technological systems.

Susan Davis

Retired

For nearly four decades, Susan Davis devoted her professional life to improving opportunities for learning for both children and adults. With a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of South Carolina and a Master’s in Creative Writing from George Mason University, she served as a school administrator, taught students from fifth grade through grad school, designed leadership and teacher professional development programs, and blogged about the challenges of creating a technology-rich classroom for Getting Smart.

In 2017, she left the classroom and became the second employee at the Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools, ATLIS, where she served as its professional development director until her retirement in 2022. If you have participated in an ATLIS Town Hall, taken part in the ATLIS Leadership Institute, or used the ATLIS360 guidelines and manual, your professional life has been touched by her work. She is proudest of the role she played in supporting technology leaders through the tough times of the pandemic shut-down, of designing a curriculum for the ATLIS Undaunted 2021 Retreat to ease the transition into a post-pandemic era of education, and of conceiving of “The 4th Teacher,” based on conversations in the ATLIS community, as a way to describe technology’s pervasive role in education today.

Davis and her husband, Larry Kahn, are now exploring all the creative possibilities of retirement in their new home in northern Alabama.

Larry Kahn

Retired

Larry Kahn believes passionately in creating conditions at schools where students can have innovative learning experiences. Kahn’s interest in technology evolved from teaching himself to code computer games on a Commodore Vic 20. From 1982 through 1999, He worked in private industry – coding, leading projects, and managing a data center for a wholly-owned subsidiary of a Fortune 500 company. In 1999, Kahn returned to education to lead technology programs at small and large schools, single-sex and co-ed schools, boarding and day schools. He is known as a fixer for his ability to improve struggling technology programs and help them thrive.

An active speaker on the edtech circuit, Kahn also served on the NAIS Innovation Task Force and as a mentor for the ATLIS Leadership Institute. In 2018, Kahn received ISTE’s Independent School’s Educators Network Outstanding Educator Award.

Kahn’s unique mix of strong interpersonal skills and deep knowledge of educational technology, operational technology, and information technology have served him well throughout his career of service to independent schools. While Kahn has retired from full-time school technology leadership, he continues to work as a senior collaborator with Educational Collaborators.

Howard Levin

Director of Educational Innovation, Convent & Stuart Hall Schools of the Sacred Heart

Howard Levin has spent more than two decades working as a technology leader in independent schools. In 2011, he transitioned into the newly defined role of director of educational innovation, leading tech-related strategic initiatives at Convent & Stuart Hall Schools of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco, a complex K-12, multi-campus independent school in the heart of San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood. Previously, he spent 12 years as director of technology at the Urban School of San Francisco, a school on the cutting edge of curriculum innovation that spans far beyond technology, about which he has written extensively.

In addition to educational technology leadership, Levin has helped lead rethinking and renovating learning spaces, working with leading architects and designers to transform classrooms, libraries, and other spaces into learning studios that support and extend collaboration for all.

2022 Awardees

Sarah Hanawald

Senior Director of Academic Leaders, One Schoolhouse

Sarah Hanawald has worked in four different independent schools, three in North Carolina, and one online where she's been a teacher, advisor, technology director, dorm parent, and academic dean. She's covered a lot of variety within those schools, working in day/boarding coeducational/all-girls, K-12 and high school. She has worked in association leadership for the past several years, previously at ATLIS, the One to One Institute and most is currently with the Association for Academic Leaders. She joined One Schoolhouse in February 2020 (yes, that's the date) to lead professional learning.

Outside of school, Sarah lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her spouse and two teenagers. She enjoys running (slowly) and reads omnivorously. She shares that, like a lot of families, she's been cooking at home a lot more lately, but can't wait to get back out on the road, traveling for One Schoolhouse and with her family."

Alex Inman

Chief Academic Officer, STS Education

Alex Inman has dedicated his career to advancing educational technology by pulling together the "doers" in the industry -- even before "the edtech industry" existed. Very early in his career, he was given the choice of a debate director position at a prestigious school in the northeast or a newly created technology director position at University Lake School, a rural school in Wisconsin. He chose the latter and launched one of the earliest student 1:1 programs in the country and the first in the state. While serving as the Director of Technology and Library Services at Whitfield School, Alex launched one of the biggest Linux 1:1 programs in the world, where his students contributed to global open source projects. While there, he founded Educational Collaborators, an international consulting and professional development organization of more than 140 education experts, including numerous previous Pillar Award recipients. Believing in the power of “doers,” Alex continued in tech leadership at Whitfield and then Sidwell Friends School before committing to Educational Collaborators full-time in 2015. In 2021, Education Collaborators was acquired by STS Education, where Alex continues his progress-driven collaboration and serves as Chief Academic Officer. Alex earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in communication and education from Marquette University and is active in multiple nonprofits that address the unique needs of children and adults with autism and epilepsy.

Ally Wenzel

Director of Technology, Stevenson School

Ally Wenzel serves as the Director of Technology at Stevenson School, a PK-12 day/boarding school with 750 students and 30 buildings on 50 acres of land and two campuses, in Pebble Beach and Carmel, California. Ally holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a master’s degree in Instructional Science and Technology from California State University. With more than 10 years experience in industry and 20+ years in independent education, Ally brings a wealth of experience leading and managing all aspects of an enterprise network including business processes, data workflow, all levels of physical infrastructure, database integration, authentication, access control, cloud technologies and cyber security. Ally currently serves on the faculty of the ATLIS Leadership Institute program for aspiring technology leaders, presents at annual conferences and consults with schools across the globe to share best practices from her lived and learned experience.

2021 Awardees

Hiram Cuevas

Director of Information Services and Academic Technology, St. Christopher's School

Hiram Cuevas joined St. Christopher’s, Richmond, Virginia, in 1991 as a middle school science teacher, advisor, and coach. During his tenure, he also served as the Middle School Technology Coordinator, the Director of Summer Programs, and he is currently the Director of Information Systems and Academic Technology where he holds the Charles S. Luck II ‘51 Chair of Academic Technology. Cuevas and his team successfully integrated technology into the curriculum and led the deployment of the school's student information system, 1:1 BYOLaptop program, and website. He was also instrumental in earning recognition for St. Christopher's School as the Spotlight School at the Lausanne Learning Conference in 2015.
In addition to being a Google Certified Teacher, he is also the Executive Director of Blackbaud’s K-12 Advisory Board, a senior collaborator with Educational Collaborators, has served as the chair of the VAIS Technology Committee, and has presented at ATLIS, NAIS, VAIS, the Lausanne Learning Conference, and Blackbaud’s K-12 User’s Conference. Cuevas has also served as a mentor for the ATLIS Leadership Institute and on ATLIS’s conference planning committee.
Cuevas holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in education from the College of William and Mary and is a member of the College’s Athletics Hall of Fame in Track and Field. He and his wife Grace, a teacher at Saint Gertrude High School, have three children: Gracie, Joey, and Aubrey.

Dr. Shabbi Luthra

CEO and Founder, Consilience Education Foundation

Dr. Shabbi Luthra has worked for more than three decades in various teaching and leadership roles in the field of educational technology and innovation leadership in independent international schools. Her expertise includes envisioning, deploying, and providing guidance in the areas of technology integration programs, staff development, building technology leadership at all levels of a school, and innovation leadership and management in schools and organizations. Her work is focused on the development of stakeholder ownership, and on the creation of learning environments that support students’ acquisition of skills for their future. She has led research in laptop learning programs and started the International Research Collaborative, a consortium of international schools that research and study their laptop programs. She presents workshops and seminars at conferences around the world and provides consultative advice to schools on technology planning, technology integration, and innovation leadership. She has served as director of Research and Development at the American School of Bombay and has led educators to study, design, prototype, and research new designs of schooling and sustainable innovation for relevant learning. The co-author of R&D Your School: How to Start, Grow, and Sustain Your School’s Innovation Engine, she has also led the publication of seven volumes of Future Forwards, a research publication that captures the innovation ideas and prototypes at the American School of Bombay and beyond. She is leading the use of data to inform learning in schools through the design of learning analytics and data visualizations in the Learning Analytics Collaborative. One of her graduate degrees is a master’s degree in education (curriculum and instruction) from the University of Houston. She also holds a doctorate in educational media and technology from Boston University.

Jason Ramsden

Chief Information Officer, Ravenscroft School

Jason Ramsden brings 31 years of experience to his role as Chief Information Officer for Ravenscroft School. For the last 24 years, Ramsden has dedicated his career to improving technology in independent schools both on the instructional, infrastructure, and informational levels. A sought after speaker and presenter, Ramsden has given more than 30 presentations on topics that have included leadership, data and research, enrollment management, technology, and social media for organizations including: National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), National Business Officers Association (NBOA), Enrollment Management Association (EMA), Association for Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (ATLIS), Mid-South Independent School Business Officers (MISBO), Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS), Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS), Florida Council of Independent Schools (FCIS), and the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools (NCAIS). A co-author of Communicating and Connecting with Social Media from Solution Tree, Ramsden has also contributed thought leadership articles to a wide variety of industry publications. Ramsden has been an ATLIS board member since 2016, and was the first non-founder Board Chair to lead the organization. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Loyola University and a master’s degree in education, administration and supervision, from Fordham University.

2020 Awardees

Dr. Chris Bigenho

Director of the Virtual Learning Academy, Lewisville Independent School District

Dr. Chris Bigenho has more than 30 years’ experience in public and private education including administration and teaching in the K-12 environment, as well as teaching in higher education. Prior to returning to the public sector, Bigenho spent 21 years at Greenhill School where he was Director of Instructional Technology. During his tenure, he has served on multiple local, state, and national committees and think tanks and has been a featured speaker at ISAS, NAIS, and ISTE conferences and workshops. As an international educational consultant, Bigenho has spoken at schools and conferences across the United States and South America and has done extensive work with NAIS on projects including the 21st century classroom, creating dynamic online communities, and more recently, pop-up makerspaces. Outside of his K-12 work, he is an adjunct professor and published educational researcher with interests in online learning, cognition and memory related to teaching and learning, and instructional design. Bigenho received his PhD from the University of North Texas in Educational Computing, master’s degree from Pepperdine in Educational Technology, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Music and Environmental Studies. He resides in Texas where he is a husband and proud father of three children.

Barry Kallmeyer

Chief Information Officer, Hathaway Brown

Barry Kallmeyer began his Hathaway Brown career in 1997 as the middle school technology teacher and coordinator. In 2011, he took on the role of Director of Academic Technology, a position he held for four years before transitioning to CIO in 2015. In this capacity, Kallmeyer creates strategic IT initiatives that align with Hathaway Brown’s short- and long-term goals. He has overseen the implementation of numerous initiatives, including the launch of a schoolwide 1:1 iPad and laptop program, instituting faculty laptop choice, and cybersecurity training for both employees and students. He works closely with administrators, students, faculty, and parents to deliver innovative programs and services that enhance teaching and learning. Within the ATLIS community, Kallmeyer has been an ECATD mentor, an ATLIS Guide to Self Study committee member, a writer for Access Points, a participant on the new ATLIS360 Task Force, and a vocal advocate for the ATLIS Technology Impact and Efficacy (TIE) assessment. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish and a master’s in education from Washington University in St. Louis.

Connie White

Director of Learning Design and Innovation, Woodward Academy

Connie White is a former upper school physics, chemistry and math teacher who became one of the first tech directors of a 1:1 program in the southeast. She specializes in start-up innovation initiatives, STEAM, blended learning, technology integration, professional development, brain-based strategies, educational spaces, pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum design. Throughout her career, White has conducted hundreds of workshops and seminars around the world. She is the president of Atlanta Area Technology Educators, which is an ISTE affiliate, writes the education column for Southern Distinction magazine, and is a Paul Harris Fellow. White has consulted with schools nationally and internationally in the areas of technology, academics, and STEAM for more than 10 years. She leads Woodward Academy’s efforts in the areas of professional development, curriculum, and innovation. She was the recipient of the 2016 ISTE ISEN Outstanding Educator Award and serves as the Program Director of the ATLIS Institute for Early Career and Aspiring Technology Directors. A lifelong learner, she is currently working towards her Certificate in Advanced Education Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

2019 Awardees

Susan M. Bearden

Director of Digital Programs, InnovateEDU

Susan M. Bearden has been informing technology educators ever since her eight-year tenure as Director of Information Technology at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Florida. Author of Digital Citizenship: A Community-Based Approach, Bearden also co-founded and moderates weekly podcasts for the BAM Radio Network, along with Twitter chats at #edtechchat and #digcit. She served as a US Department of Education Pioneer Fellow in 2016 and 2017, where she produced a revised and updated edition of its Building Technology Infrastructure for Learning, which was featured in an ATLIS webinar in 2018. Among her vast recognition in the educational technology world, Bearden has been named a Top 100 Edtechand ELearner Influencer and one of 50 Technology Rock stars You Must Follow on Twitter, has received the ISTE Making IT Happen Award (2015), and won the 2014 Bammy Award for School Technologist of the Year. CETL-certified, Bearden earned her BA in English and BM in Viola Performance from Oberlin College, Her Master’s in Viola Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and her AS in Information Technology from Eastern Florida State College.

William Stites

Director of Technology, Montclair Kimberley Academy

A reflective leader with more than two decades of experience in educational technology, William Stites helped design the ATLIS Technology Impact and Efficacy (TIE) assessment and co-hosts the ATLIS Information Systems User Group. He is a frequent contributor to the G Suite User Group as well, as seen in an excerpt that focuses on off boarding users in G Suite. Currently the Director of Technology at Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, New Jersey, Stites evolved from third-grade teacher to primary school technology coordinator to webmaster and high school web design instructor. He also co-leads his school’s Irish Studies program. A senior collaborator with Educational Collaborators, member of the NJAIS Technology Steering Committee, and advisor to the New Jersey Educational Computing Cooperative (NJECC), he is blogger-in-chief for edSocialMedia. Stites earned his BA in Early Childhood Education from Montclair State University.

Vinnie Vrotny

Director of Technology, Kinkaid School

Throughout his 32-year career, Vinnie Vrotny has connected technology leaders with each other and to their schools with a focus on developing ways to best leverage technology in meaningful and authentic ways for learners. One of the earliest supporters of ATLIS, Vrotny has served as a thought leader for many of its programs, including chairing the 2019 ATLIS Annual Conference Advisory Committee. In February of 2018, Vrotny was featured in a webinar on independent school technology policies as part of the ATLIS Leadership Webinar Series. In his fifth year as Director of Technology at The Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas, Vrotny leads all aspects of technology across every division, department, and constituency group across his campus. Prior to his tenure at Kinkaid, he was the Director of Academic Technology at the North Shore Country Day School (IL) and Quest Academy (IL). Named a NAIS Teacher of the Future in 2013, Vrotny focuses on implementing technology enhanced learning environments for all learners, including designing physical and virtual learning spaces and environments, developing a balanced, human-centered approach to our use of technology, and protecting the privacy and creating a secure environment for the school’s users. After he earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Material Science from Northwestern University, Vrotny was a pioneer in podcasting, serving as a co-host of 21st Century Learning from 2008-2013 to explore the intersection of learning and technology, and he has been an influential contributor in ISTE's Independent and International School Educator Network.

2018 Awardees

Dr. Jill Brown

Educational Technologist, Albuquerque Academy

Dr. Brown has served on the Board of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), where she also founded ISTE’s Independent Schools Educators Network (ISEN). Dr. Brown received ISTE’s Independent School Educator Award in 2017. Dr. Brown’s influence has extended to the Innovation Task Force for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). Closer to home, Dr. Brown served on the Board of the New Mexico Association of Nonpublic Schools (NMANS) and currently serves on the Board for the New Mexico Society for Technology in Education (NM STE) in collaboration with ISTE and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). Dr. Brown earned her Ph.D. in Educational Technology, MA in Curriculum and Instruction, and BA in Elementary Education. She conducted her dissertation research on the necessary skills for teachers to be successful technology integrators in the classroom. Dr. Brown also volunteers for the New Mexico Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and is a vocalist in a local band, Chill.

Jamie Britto

Chief Information Officer, Lakeside School

Jamie Britto, recognized in June 2016 by Info-Tech as a CIO Award winner for medium-size organizations, has been working with and learning from a variety of experts in the technology, legal, and insurance industries to understand the emerging field of cybersecurity, especially as this knowledge applies to independent schools. His recent work in cybersecurity includes articles and presentations for the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), National Business Officers Association (NBOA), MISBO (2015), the Virginia Business Officers Institute. He has led the ATLIS Task Force on Cybersecurity and developed and led ATLIS workshops on cybersecurity designed specifically for independent schools that have been held in Washington, DC; Los Angeles; and Chicago (a fourth will be held in Fort Worth, Texas, in July 2018). Britto began his career teaching English as a Foreign Language in Valenciennes, France, and the Fairfax County Public School system in Virginia. Prior to joining Lakeside School, Jamie was CIO for Collegiate School in Virginia, and technology director and upper school director at Cape Fear Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina. He has a BA in French and English from Mary Washington College and an MA.ED from Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Curt Lieneck

former Director of Information Technology (now retired), University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Lieneck, Director of Information Technology at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools before his retirement in 2020, served on the NAIS Technology Task force for three years, co-managed the ISED-L listserv for six years, presents regularly at conferences, consults as a Senior Collaborator for Educational Collaborators, and currently serves on the teaching faculty for the ATLIS Institute for Early Career and Aspiring Technology Directors (ECATD). Early in his career, spanning 40 years in education, Lieneck taught elementary school at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he developed a keen interest in how the thoughtful use of emerging technologies in the classroom reflected the Lab Schools’ legacy of constructivist pedagogy. Lieneck eventually took on the task of running the schools’ nascent technology operation in the summer of 1998. Before his retirement, he oversaw a technology team of 13 serving 2,150 students and 375 faculty and staff and supporting more than 2,000 devices. A lifelong devotee of teaching and learning, Lieneck earned a Master of Science in Teaching degree from the University of Chicago.