Jane A. G. Kise, Ed. D., is the founder of Differentiated Coaching Associates. For the past 20 years she has worked as a consultant, specializing in teambuilding, coaching, and professional development. She is also the author or coauthor of over 25 books, including Unleashing the Positive Power of Differences: Polarity Thinking for Our Schools, Differentiated Coaching: A Framework for Helping Teachers Change, Intentional Leadership, Holistic Leadership, Thriving Schools and Step In, Step Up: Empowering Women for the School Leadership Journey . She holds an MBA in finance from the Carlson School of Management and a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of St. Thomas, both in Minnesota.

Kise has worked with diverse organizations across the United States and in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Her clients include Minneapolis Public Schools and various public and private schools, The Bush Foundation, NASA, Twin Cities Public Television, and numerous other institutions. She is a frequent workshop speaker and has presented at Learning Forward, ASCD, NCTM, NCSM, World Futures, and Association for Psychological Type International (APTi) conferences, including keynoting in Miami, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney and Auckland.

Kise’s research on coaching teachers for change received several awards. Her research on patterns in Jungian type and how students approach mathematics became a TEDx talk.

Website: www.janekise.com

Megan M. Allen, EdD, is a National Board Certified Teacher, the 2010 Florida Teacher of the Year, and a finalist for 2010 National Teacher of the Year. She currently is serving as the director of the Master of Arts in Teacher Leadership at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. She has taught for ten years, most as an elementary and special education teacher, serving in Title One schools in Hillsborough County, FL.

Megan is a huge policy nerd who enjoys blogging for Education Week at An Edugeek’s Guide to K12 Practice and Policy and for the Center for Teaching Quality at Musings of a Red Headed Teacher.  She is also proud to serve on the Board of Directors for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the Teacher Advisory Board for Teaching Partners. @redhdteacher

Dr. Kristen Lee, Ed.D., LICSW, known as “Dr. Kris” , is a recovering perfectionist, Proud Mama and an award-winning, internationally recognized professor, clinician and author from Boston, Massachusetts.

As the Lead Faculty for Behavioral Science at Northeastern University, Dr. Kris’s research and teaching interests include individual and organizational well-being and resilience, particularly for marginalized and underserved populations. She operates a clinical and consulting practice devoted to preventing and treating burnout and works to mitigate the education mental health crisis for students and educators. She is the author of RESET: Make the Most of Your Stress, Winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards Motivational Book of 2015 and Mentalligence: A New Psychology of Thinking. She is a regular contributor for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today. Dr. Kris’s work has been featured on NPR and CBS radio. To watch her TedX Ocala talk, The Risk You Must Take and to learn more about her work, please visit www.kristenlee.com. 

Jaclyn is an instructor at Hunter College in NYC, where she teaches special education teacher induction courses and mentors new teachers in the field.  She has taught middle and high school in both public and private schools in NYC and has held various administrative roles.  Prior to education, Jaclyn spent ten years in finance, where she traded bonds, worked for community development financial institutions and conducted microfinance work in Africa.

Jaclyn’s interest in mentoring stems from her experiences as a new teacher, and the support she received from her mentors that kept her going during those first few years.

A certified yoga teacher, Jaclyn’s interests also include bringing mindfulness into schools.  She is currently pursuing doctoral research into effective mentoring practices and the extent to which mentors who teach social and emotional learning to new teachers can impact retention and job satisfaction.  In addition to her doctoral work in Educational Leadership at St. John’s University, Jaclyn has a Bachelors in Management from Tulane University, a Masters in Public Administration from NYU and a Masters in Special Education from Hunter College.

Kristina Lamour Sansone found refuge from her own learning challenges in graphic design, a communication and learning process that connects pictures and words into one simultaneous language. Over more than twenty years of practice, teaching, consulting, and research, her primary goal has been to connect the graphic design process with teaching and learning, including assessment, the Reggio Emilia approach, STEM, English Language Learners and Universal Design for Learning. She recently published a chapter titled, Using Strategies from Graphic Design To Improve Teaching and Learning in Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media literacy: Visualizing Learning, Springer Publishing. She holds a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from The University of the Arts, an M.F.A. in Graphic Design from Yale University College of Art, and a C.A.G.S. in Curriculum and Instruction from Lesley University’s School of Education.

Ellyn has long been committed to the leadership development of others. She is a 1987 graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy and began her career during a pioneering era for women in the military. Her demonstrated leadership and mentoring skills led to her being assigned to the first formal Leadership Development staff at the US Coast Guard Academy in the 1990s. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, she was immersed in the Coast Guard's new mission of Homeland Security. For the next eight years she was a reservist for the Captain of the Port in Seattle, Boston and Providence.  Ellyn began her second career as a middle school science teacher in 2006. She continues to rely on her military leadership skills to inspire students and influence outcomes.  Her experiences as a public school teacher and a fellow in the NEA/Teach Plus "Future of the Profession" fellowship re-energized Ellyn’s commitment to leadership development. In 2013, she became affiliated with a leadership consulting program for veterans called Homefront Leaders and conducted training sessions for managers at Hasbro Inc. and Blue Cross Blue Shield of RI.  In 2015, Ellyn was chosen to participate in the National Teach to Lead Summit in Boston, MA. Combining her strong belief that all teachers must be leaders with the momentum from the  national movement on teacher leadership, Ellyn founded THE TOTAL TEACHER PROJECT.  Along with her BS degree from the Coast Guard Academy, Ellyn holds an MS degree in Adult Education and Human Resource Development from Fordham University, and an  MEd from the University  of Massachusetts Boston. She holds certifications in elementary education, middle school science, and middle school mathematics.

Kat Johnston brings ten years of experience in the education sector. Kat has demonstrated ability to impact students and teachers across a variety of contexts—in the classroom as a first-grade teacher in North Carolina, managing nonprofit programs for early childhood education and high school leadership development, and in state-level policymaking.  While working at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, she was the lead author of the 2015 MA Guidelines for Induction and Mentoring Programs and supported Project SUCCESS, a mentor training program under Race to the Top. She pioneered the Department’s teacher leadership work, including the Educator Effectiveness Teacher Advisory Cabinet and Teachers’ Top Three from ESE. In her latest role as Director of Programs, Kat is continuing to focus on empowering teachers working with Maria Fenwick to launch The Teacher Collaborative.

Kat holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Public Policy degree from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.