See Program Advisors and Consultants

Ross Wiener is a Vice President and the Executive Director of the Education and Society Program at the Aspen Institute.

In this role Ross leads professional learning networks for urban school district leaders and senior Congressional Education staffers. The program assists policymakers and education leaders in strengthening human capital systems, supporting implementation of Common Core State Standards, and strategically reallocating financial resources. In addition to facilitating networks, the Education & Society Program hosts public conversations as well as off-the-record workshops, and publishes original research and commentary. From 2002 to 2009, Ross worked at the Education Trust, a national, non-profit organization dedicated to raising standards and closing achievement gaps in public education. As policy director and then as vice president for program and policy, Ross managed the Education Trust’s research/data analysis, policy development, conference programming, and technical assistance to educators and policymakers in both K-12 and higher education.

Prior to Education Trust, Ross served for five years as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities Section, where he represented the United States in cases dealing with desegregation, harassment, and the adequacy of services to limited-English proficient and disabled students.

Contact: ross.wiener@aspeninstitute.org

Nancy Pelz-Paget is the Co-Director of the Education and Society Program at the Aspen Institute and was principal in its founding.

The Aspen Education Program develops K-12 education leadership and public policy initiatives through a variety professional learning networks, case studies and policy reports, and public convenings.

Ms. Pelz-Paget previously served as Director of Policy Programs, for the Council for Aid to Education, then a subsidiary of the RAND Corporation, where she was responsible for organizing and executing policy forums with state, education and business leaders on reform in higher education. She was also an advisor to the Council on the College Learning Assessment (CLA) program. In addition, she was a TV executive in charge of non-fiction program development, production and marketing for public television in NY.

Ms. Pelz-Paget recently served as an advisor to the Richardson Foundation Forum on the future of teacher preparation in Texas. In addition, she also served on the advisory boards of Wireless Generation and is an advisor to the Center for Research, Evaluation and the Advancement of Teacher Education (CREATE), a Consortium of Texas A&M University System and the UT System, the three largest producers of teachers in Texas.

Contact: nancypp@aspeninstitute.org

Sheila Brown is the Co-Director of the Aspen Program on Education and Society

Sheila Brown has been deeply involved in leading systemic reform and instructional improvement work in pK-12 urban settings since 1991. Dr. Brown currently serves as the Co-Director of the Aspen Institute’s Education and Society Program. She was recently the Director of the Boston Field Site for the Strategic Education Research Partnership. She has also recently provided consulting services in the Baltimore City Public School System as a trainer and executive coach to Area Academic Officers (Area Superintendents) and pK-12 principals. She also functioned as the lead consultant in the Baltimore City Public School System's high school reform work and was responsible for researching and recommending effective high school literacy curriculum, assessments, safety net intervention programs and professional development models.
Dr. Brown has also served as a consultant for K-12 schools in the Hartford (CT) Public Schools. This work involved curriculum development, teacher and administrator training and coaching the central office leadership in implementing and assessing the effectiveness of the city's literacy initiative. Prior to consulting work, Dr. Brown served as the Director of Reform and Deputy Superintendent for the Boston Public Schools. She supervised one third of the city’s schools and was responsible for launching the district’s K-12 literacy initiative and “Whole School Improvement” work.

Sheila is a board member for the Urban Teacher Center based in Baltimore MD and holds an Ed.D. in Organizational Management from Pepperdine University, an M.S. in Educational Administration from California State University, Fullerton and a B.B.A. in Industrial Marketing and Spanish from Western Michigan University.

Contact: sheila.brown@aspeninstitute.org

Joaquín Tamayo is the Assistant Director of the Education and Society Program at the Aspen Institute.

Joaquín, a former high school teacher and principal, focuses on issues related to human capital in education, teaching effectiveness, and implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and aligned assessments for accountability.  He is project manager and a lead author of Aspen’s professional development resources for educators – “Tools for Teachers” – on implementing the key instructional shifts in the CCSS.  Joaquín also manages the Aspen Senior Congressional Education Staff Network, a network of senior congressional education committee staff that focuses on critical issues in federal K-12 policy, as well as the Education Program’s new work related to education innovation and technology.

Before joining Aspen, Joaquín served as high school principal with the César Chávez Public Charter Schools in Washington, DC., initiating a school-wide transformation to focus on student mastery as opposed to more conventional methods of student assessment.  In 2005, Joaquín founded the Urban Assembly Academy of Government and Law (AGL), a small, government and law-themed college preparatory high school in New York City’s Lower East Side.  From 1998 to 2002, Joaquín served as a high school social studies teacher at Huntington Park High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Joaquín holds a B.A. in political science from Columbia University, a master in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and is a graduate (Cohort 4) of the New Leaders for New Schools urban principal residency program.  In 2010, Princeton University honored Joaquín with the Edward P. Bullard Distinguished Alumnus Award in recognition of his contributions to the cause of excellence in public education.

Contact: joaquín.tamayo@aspeninstitute.org

Katrin Thomas is Senior Program Manager at the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program. In this role she handles all financial, administrative and meeting management details. She is a native of Switzerland and holds a masters degree in Secondary Education from the University of Berne, Switzerland.

Contact: Katrin.Thomas@aspeninst.org

Sarah McKibben is the Research Assistant for the Education and Society Program at The Aspen Institute. Sarah provides research and analytical support to the Aspen Education Program's leadership networks and manages the Digital Resource Library.   Before joining the team at Aspen, Sarah coordinated the Business Environmental Alliance (BEA) for Sonoma County. California. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Sarah holds a B.A. from Vanderbilt University in Public Policy Studies and a Master of Public Administration in education policy from American University.

Contact: sarah.mckibben@aspeninstitute.org

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Program Advisors and Consultants