Board Chair, Sandra H. Welch • President, Welch & Associates
Ms. Welch has provided consulting services to public television stations, non-profit educational organizations and media production companies since 1998. Her services include strategic planning, education market assessment, public and private fundraising and business planning related to digital learning systems. Since 2004 she has also been a Program Officer at the National Science Foundation managing the informal science education media portfolio.
Prior to starting her consulting practice Ms. Welch was Executive Vice President, Learning Services at PBS (1991-1998)where she oversaw the Adult Learning Service, PBS LiteracyLink, PBS Mathline and PBS Ready to Learn. Prior to joining PBS, she spent 20 years at KET, the Kentucky Network, where her accomplishments included developing the national GED ON TV model for adult learners, and Star Channels, a statewide distance learning service. Ms. Welch has been a keynote speaker at national and international conferences. She has served on the boards of Cable in the Classroom, the U.S. Distance Learning Association, and Literacy Volunteers of America, among others. She currently serves on the Board of the Oklahoma State University Telecommunications Center.
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Tania Brief • Attorney, Bronx Defenders
Tania C. Brief is a criminal defense attorney at the Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit organization that provides free legal representation in the South Bronx. Prior to joining the Bronx Defenders, Ms. Brief worked as a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP and then served as a law clerk to the Hon. William H. Pauley III, United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York.
Before attending law school, Ms. Brief spent two years as an associate producer at Learning Matters, Inc. Ms. Brief received her B.A. from Yale and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
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Joseph S. Brosnan, Ed.D. • President, Delaware Valley College
Joseph S. Brosnan, Ed.D., is Learning Matters’ newest Board member and a renowned administrator who is currently president of Delaware Valley College. Prior to that, Dr. Brosnan served as vice president for Strategic Planning and External Affairs at Teachers College, Columbia University, for 12 years.
During his tenure as a senior officer at Teachers College (TC), he provided communications guidance to senior college officers, helping to position the former TC president as one of the nation’s top experts on educational issues.
Earlier in his career, he served as senior vice president for University Relations at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, N.Y., and chief advancement officer and executive director of the Potsdam College Foundation for the State University of New York at Potsdam. Brosnan earned his bachelor’s degree from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY, and his master’s and doctorate in education from the State University of New York at Albany.
Since 2005, he has served on the Board of Directors of the national “I Have a Dream” Foundation, which serves to motivate and empower children from low-income communities to achieve their educational and career goals.
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Virginia Edwards • Editor, Education Week
Virginia B. Edwards was named president of Editorial Projects in Education in April 1997. In that role, she oversees the nearly 100-person nonprofit corporation that publishes Education Week, Teacher Magazine, edweek.org, and the annual reports Quality Counts and Technology Counts; raises funding for both new and ongoing projects; and develops new ventures.
Ms. Edwards was named the editor of Education Week in December 1995 and, for the six years before that, had served as the newspaper’s executive editor. She oversees a staff of more than 55 editors, reporters, and graphic artists engaged in the weekly production of Education Week. The newspaper, which covers policy developments in pre collegiate education and is published 44 times a year, has a paid circulation of about 53,000, and is read by more than 200,000 others.
Before joining EPE, Ms. Edwards worked for nearly two years for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and, for the nearly 10 years before that, was an editor and reporter for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, KY.
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BJ Fogg, PhD
Stanford University awarded Dr. BJ Fogg the Maccoby Prize in 1998 for four years of experimental research on how computers can change people’s attitudes and behaviors. He then founded the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and began teaching at Stanford (Computer Science & School of Education) on his area of expertise.
In addition to teaching and directing research on campus, Dr. Fogg leads innovation projects for Silicon Valley companies. As a psychologist he brings an unusual perspective to working on technology innovations. He holds seven patents, and he has an additional eight patents pending. Dr. Fogg is the author of Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, a book that explains how computers can motivate and influence people. He is the co-editor of Mobile Persuasion: 20 Perspectives on the Future of Behavior Change.
Dr. Fogg’s life’s work is to shape technology innovation in ways that benefit the world and make people happier. He believes two principles are essential for achieving these goals: designing for simplicity and building relationships of trust. For each principle he has created practical frameworks that help designers create better products.
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Bobbi L. Kamil
Bobbi L. Kamil holds a doctorate in Instructional Technology from Syracuse University. She has served as a consultant to: Ovation, The Arts Network; InterVU; Archipelago; Lightspan Partnerships and the Kyle Foundation, among others.
Dr. Kamil was also the Founding Executive Director of Cable in the Classroom, a non-profit community service effort of both cable companies and cable programmers. During her seven-year tenure, the goal of Cable in the Classroom was to match the resources of the cable industry with the needs of K-12 schools.
Prior to that, Bobbi served as Special Assistant for Academic Utilization to The Annenberg/CPB Project, Washington, DC. The goal of the 150 million dollar grant to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was to develop telecommunications technologies, including telecourses, to enhance the quality and availability of higher education. Bobbi worked with universities to adopt the programming and with all broadcast and cable outlets to utilize the programs.
Dr. Kamil was invited in 1988 to serve as an Invited Visiting Scholar to the Ministry of Education in Japan. She also served as a Dean at Empire State College, the college without walls of the State University of New York. Dr. Kamil was named Women of the Year by Women In Cable and Telecommunications and received the Distinguished Vanguard Award for Leadership from the National Cable Television Association.
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Joshua Kaufman • Venable Attorneys at Law
Joshua Kaufman counsels and litigates in the fields of copyright, e-commerce, licensing, art, intellectual property, software, on-line issues, trademark, entertainment, media and literary law. He advises his clients in structuring and negotiating transactions in which they exploit their intellectual property rights or in acquiring them from others. He is the head of the firm’s Copyright and Unfair Trade Group.
Mr. Kaufman was one of the nation’s first computer and cyber lawyers. In addition to the law, Mr. Kaufman knows computers. He worked as a computer consultant and, for 10 years, had a syndicated column in which he reviewed hardware and software. He is also one of the country’s most well-known art lawyers with clients spanning the globe. He represents a wide variety of artists, art publishers, art licensing agents and art licensees. Once again his legal expertise is augmented by a strong knowledge of the art world as an artist, gallery owner and importer (he was MC Eschers’ first distributor in the USA).
Mr. Kaufman assists his clients in understanding how to acquire and obtain the rights necessary for their projects, specifically, the acquisition of licenses, copyrights, trademarks and trade secret rights. He assists them in exploiting these rights through licensing and joint ventures. In the event that his clients’ rights are infringed upon, Mr. Kaufman assists them in securing proper and appropriate recompense for their losses through mediation, negotiation, arbitration and litigation. In order to fully protect their rights and insure they are not infringing on the rights of others, he spearheads the firm’s IP Audit team. In the event that a client has misused the intellectual property of another, Mr. Kaufman seeks to extricate them from such circumstances in the most expeditious, cost effective and confidential manner possible.
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William Kelly • Founder and CEO, Learning.com
Bill Kelly is the founder and CEO of Learning.com. Since co-founding the company in 1999, Bill has been recognized as a leading innovator in the Educational Technology industry as well as a leading advocate for education in his hometown of Portland, Oregon. Bill served on the SIIA Education Division board, and has spoken at several events for organizations and events such as AAP, AEP, SIIA, ISTE, SETDA and EdNet. Bill has received dozens of industry awards on behalf of Learning.com, including three CODIEs from SIIA.
He has also been recognized by his local business community, including being named to “40 under 40” by the Portland Business Journal, and receiving the Technology Company of the Year award for “Best Internet Company.” Bill is on the board of the Portland Schools Foundation, and has served on several ad hoc committees and task forces for Portland Public Schools.
Prior to Learning.com, Bill was the co-founder and Executive Vice President of Sapient Health Network, which became part of WebMD in 1999. There, he pioneered the development of sustainable online support communities and personalized information delivery. Sapient Health Network was listed as a top Web site by Business Week magazine in 1998. Previous company experience includes Creative Multimedia, Fidelity Capital, and Knight-Ridder, Inc.
Bill is a Portland native, and returned to live in the same neighborhood where he was raised. He has four children, all of whom attend public schools and universities in Portland. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Harvard Business School.
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Jerome Murphy • Harold Howe II Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
After a brief stint as a math teacher in the Manhasset Public Schools, Dr. Murphy joined the Johnson Administration to help develop education legislation, including the groundbreaking Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Later he worked on food and drug legislation in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and then served as associate director of the White House Fellows program. He also served as associate staff director of the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. After completing his doctorate, he founded and directed the Massachusetts Internships in Education.
Dr. Murphy joined the Harvard faculty in 1974 and became a full professor in 1982. He served as Associate Dean from 1982 to 1990 and as Dean from 1992 to 2001. He is currently the Harold Howe II Professor of Education.
Before assuming the deanship, Murphy was instrumental in the creation of the Urban Superintendents Program, which prepares school leaders to address the challenges of urban districts, and in the expansion of the Programs in Professional Education, a series of intensive professional development programs that includes the Seminar for New Presidents, which has prepared one of every six U.S. university presidents. As dean, he led the development of new initiatives in learning technologies, arts education, neuroscience and education, and school leadership.
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Wendy Puriefoy • President, Public Education Network
Wendy D. Puriefoy is a nationally recognized expert on issues of school reform and civil society, and is well known for her passionate advocacy of education equity for poor and disadvantaged children.
Ms. Puriefoy is president of Public Education Network (PEN), the nation’s largest network of community-based school reform organizations, since PEN was founded in 1991. Under her visionary leadership, PEN has grown into a national network of local education funds reaching 11 million children in 1,220 school districts and 16,700 schools nationwide.
Ms. Puriefoy has been deeply involved in school reform since the 1970’s when she served as a special monitor of the court-ordered desegregation plan for Boston’s public schools. As president of PEN, Ms. Puriefoy has successfully advocated and implemented systemic reform initiatives in school finance and governance, curriculum and assessment, parent involvement, school libraries and school health. With support from leading national foundations, PEN launched multi-million dollar initiatives on teacher quality, standards and accountability, and schools and community services.
Ms. Puriefoy serves on the boards of numerous high-profile national organizations including DEMOS, Children’s Defense Fund, Learning Matters Inc., and the National Center for Family Philanthropy.
