Meet the Fellows

Caitlin Brunton-Knowles

Caitlin’s venture aims to address the literacy learning needs of children aged 12 and under (who are at risk for dyslexia or have been diagnosed with dyslexia) through the use of original hands-on materials and technology. Caitlin has deep and personal experience with dyslexia. Both her sister- who passed away - and her son are dyslexic. Additionally, 20% of children in America have dyslexia, and dyslexic people are 35% more likely to drop out of high school and experience anxiety, depression and unemployment throughout their lifetimes. Addressing dyslexia more proactively will impact underserved communities and work towards the goal of literacy for all. Addressing dyslexia will build a more just society.

In 5-years Caitlin hopes to have broad adoption of her products and services within public schools, private schools, home school networks, and private tutoring centers. She also would like to show significant measurable improvement in early literacy outcomes for dyslexic children. She also hopes to influence literacy education for dyslexic learners and become endorsed by dyslexia advocates and research groups.

Caitlin has an MA in Education and two decades of experience working in public education, private education, home school education, clinics, and learning centers. Recently, she has developed and run two successful special education-oriented companies and one fully inclusive Waldorf preschool. 

Outside of work Caitlin loves spending time in her organic garden of vegetables, hiking with her two golden retrievers and bonding with her teenage son through travel, music, politics and pop culture.

She is a passionate advocate for special education and gifted education. She wants to help educators and parents understand that giftedness and disability often coexist within individual learners.

Amy Hopkins

Amy Hopkins is a retired K-12 home educator, licensed early childhood educator, and the founding president of Visus Education, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting homeschooling families. With over two decades of experience in curriculum development, group facilitation, and creating personalized learning environments, Amy has empowered countless families in their educational journeys. As the founder of the Career Education Club, she has also helped young people explore career pathways through innovative, hands-on learning experiences. Amy holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from McKendree University and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Education Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania.

A passionate advocate for home education, Amy focuses on providing practical tools and resources to support parents as the primary educators of their children. From building personalized learning assessments to developing customized curricula and educational documentation, Amy is dedicated to equipping parents with the skills needed to succeed. Her love for the process—from helping families choose the right curricula to guiding them through creating transcripts and launching their children into the world—is at the heart of her mission. Amy’s deep commitment to collaboration and community-based learning drives her work in supporting nontraditional education models.

Outside of her educational career, Amy has worked as a professional costume designer for theater, opera, and film for over 14 years. She enjoys roller dancing, gardening, playing the violin, and recently completed Private Pilot Ground School. Whether supporting educators or pursuing personal hobbies, Amy’s dedication to lifelong learning and creating meaningful, transformative experiences is central to her work.

Julie Liu

Julie Liu is the founder of Motherly Notes, a global online education platform that offers live, interactive Chinese classes designed to engage children and help them achieve native-level fluency. The platform addresses the challenge of maintaining true bilingual fluency for children through innovative teaching methods and a vibrant learning community. Julie’s passion for this mission stems from her belief that speaking Chinese is a key pathway for bi-cultural children to embrace their identity and connect with family members across generations.

Her five-year vision for Motherly Notes is to establish it as a leading platform for advanced native-level Chinese language learning, with a global community of families who value bilingualism. She hopes to see countless children speaking Chinese fluently, forming deep cultural connections, and developing a lifelong love for learning.

Julie earned her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and is currently pursuing an MSEd. from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She began her career in finance, before transitioning to education where she led the Asia program for the world’s largest Montessori school network, bringing a wealth of industry knowledge to her leadership at Motherly Notes.

Outside of work, Julie enjoys designing jewelry, cooking haute cuisine, singing karaoke, and exploring new travel destinations. Julie believes that when we dedicate ourselves to a good cause, every step we take becomes part of a journey that not only transforms us, but also positively impacts those around us.

Maua Osoro

Maua Osoro’s venture is a cost-effective, multilingual SMS-based communication platform aimed at bridging the communication gap between teachers and parents in low-resource, low-connectivity regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. The platform empowers educators and families to engage in students' learning, tackling issues of educational equity and accessibility in underserved communities, irrespective of socioeconomic or geographic constraints.

In five years, Maua envisions her SMS-based platform operating as a sustainable business, driven by strong partnerships with educational institutions and governments to ensure widespread adoption across Sub-Saharan Africa. This growth plan aims to deliver measurable improvements in educational outcomes for countless children. Maua also plans to expand the platform into Latin America and Southeast Asia, showcasing its adaptability to diverse languages and cultures while maintaining affordability and offline functionality.

Maua’s extensive experience in finance, venture capital, and management consulting—including her tenure at McKinsey & Company—has honed her ability to rapidly assimilate knowledge, tackle complex challenges, and draw strategic insights across multiple disciplines. These strengths, combined with her analytical rigor and holistic approach to problem-solving, now fuel her as an entrepreneur.

Maua has always been passionate about wine, and living near Napa Valley in California has allowed her to expand her palate through regular tastings and vineyard visits. Alongside Maua’s love for traveling, her husband’s pursuit of his PhD has inspired them to explore South America together, immersing themselves in its vibrant cultures, stunning landscapes, and rich culinary traditions.

Sambhrant Sharma

Sambhrant’s venture, Project Inclusion, is transforming education across India by building and operating Centers of Excellence (CoEs). These centers will leverage technology, multi-lingual, grade-specific screening, targeted remediation, and comprehensive training for teachers and special educators to support millions of children in India with diverse learning needs, who are often left behind due to inadequate screening, resources, and teacher training. Technological intervention enables real-time data gathering, enabling these centers to act as spaces for advocacy and research.

The COEs will serve as “on-the-ground” linkages between teachers/parents/special educators and state resources. Project Inclusion is already collaborating with government schools and the Government of India to bridge the gap in access to inclusive, quality education. Their mission is to ensure that every child with special needs receives the personalized support and opportunities they deserve to reach their full potential. Over the next five years, Project Inclusion aims to unlock the potential of millions of children, ensuring they receive the education and opportunities they deserve.

Having currently oriented over 350,000 government teachers and special educators and screened 60,000 students (with 29,000 moving towards remediation) they hope to scale technology to 1,000,000 teachers, impact 500,000 students, and establish one center for excellence in every state (36 in total) to as a hub of teaching and learning.  

Sambhrant is the Member Executive (Board) & Director of Education at the Sri Aurobindo Society. He also leads Rupantar, one of the largest teacher-first social innovation platforms, impacting 2.5 million teachers across 36 States/UTs in India. Rupantar is committed to inclusive and competency-based education, ensuring all children have access to quality learning opportunities.  

Additionally, Sambhrant serves on committees with the Ministry of Education, and the Government of India, including the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). Outside of work, Sambhrant enjoys reading books that broaden his horizons and deepen his understanding of various cultures and philosophies. He also takes pleasure in exploring nature, finding inspiration and tranquility in the beauty of the outdoors. He is passionate about lifelong learning and actively seeks opportunities to engage in discussions and initiatives that promote educational equity and social innovation.

Yerlan Uteulin

Yerlan Uteulin’s venture AiBooks addresses the twin challenge of lagging foundational literacy skills and building a lifelong love for reading in Kazakhstan – a nation in which children often struggle with higher-order comprehension skills later in school. AiBooks, uses AI to generate culturally relevant, fun, and research-grounded Kazakh stories, which are then refined by local authors, to help foster a deep engagement with reading for children ages 4-8. Yerlan would like to serve thousands of children to help them develop a love of reading in Kazakh over the next 5 years.

Yerlan is an educator with over a decade of experience managing complex projects in EdTech, human capital development, and corporate social responsibility. His career spans roles in - K-12 education, executive management in education, NGOs, and education endowment funds - where he has positively impacted primary and high school children from more than 20 countries. Currently, as the Project Lead for the Thrive by Five Program in Kazakhstan, and founder of Athena Educational Solutions, Yerlan is leveraging his expertise in education innovation, project management, and strategic partnerships to drive improvements in early childhood education and literacy.

Outside of work, Yerlan cherishes family time while maintaining an active lifestyle. He enjoys playing football with Europeans, practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with fellow white belts, competing in tennis matches with English players, scrambling through the Welsh mountains, and horse-riding across the vast Kazakhstani steppes.

Eliseo Valerio

Eliseo’s focus is on the lack of access to formative theatre-based education that Emergent Bilinguals face in elementary schools.

His venture provides theatre-based educational programming for Emergent Bilinguals to help develop motivation for learning, foster creativity, improve social-emotional awareness, and complement the early phases of language acquisition and identity building.

Eliseo has a background in theatre education from Shakespeare Theatre Company, Ford's Theatre, Second Stage, The New Victory Theater, the Alley Theatre, and in Mexico as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. Eliseo earned his B.A. in Theater and Performance Studies with a minor in Classics from Stanford University. He is from Houston, Texas.

Outside his professional interests, Eliseo enjoys reading, writing, experiencing culture, seeing a Shakespeare play, rewatching Downton Abbey, and traveling to new places.

Jade Peterson

Jade is thrilled to launch her new venture, Jolt Education.

One of the biggest challenges K-12 educators face is the lack of time and resources to create engaging, relevant, and fun lessons. As a middle school science teacher, Jade started each class with a TikTok of the day, such as a science news story or STEM career highlight. Not only did these clips engage her students but they helped them make connections outside of the classroom.

Jolt Education is an internet add-on that enables teachers to integrate exciting and timely short-form educational video content into existing lessons to increase engagement and reduce time spent on planning and then share their work with a central community of teachers across the globe.

Jade is an experienced educator and entrepreneur who founded her first business, Funny Nuggets, The Comedy Clubhouse for Kids, while pursuing her undergraduate degrees in business and education at the University of Iowa. She is from Ankeny, Iowa.

Jade enjoys outdoor adventures such as camping, hiking, distance running, and skiing.

Milan Butani

Milan is designing Weave to amplify teachers’ classroom abilities through observation, accurate evaluation, and deep understanding of the dynamics of student participation and engagement in group settings.

This new tool uses automatic voice recognition and data science techniques such as natural language processing to record group discussions and generate meaningful social insight that a teacher can act on. This insight can be configured based on the subject or topic of the discussion and highlight strengths and weaknesses according to the teacher's selection of learning goals or objectives.

Milan's early career includes supporting Edlyft (an edtech startup) in various roles from mentoring, recruitment, and management; business intelligence reporting at Modern Animal (a veterinary startup); and his most recent experience in a customer-facing sales role at Google Cloud.

Milan earned his bachelor’s in data science from UC Berkeley. Milan is from Los Angeles, California.

Outside of his professional interests, Milan enjoys basketball, food, and video games.

Toby Johnson

Toby is improving children’s literacy at the global level. His venture, Phunics – Fun Phonics, is a research-supported reading program that helps kids cross the literacy chasm from the ABCs to Grade 4 reading fluency.

Success to date: 25,000+ books read.

Toby’s whole career has been in education with a focus on Pre-K–Grade 6 reading courses. He holds a B.A. in Economics with a minor in Classical Studies from DePauw University. Toby is originally from McCall, Idaho.

In his free time Toby enjoys reading, traveling, hockey, surfing, camping, and strategy games.

Victoria Rummel

Victoria is dedicated to supporting teachers in creating a more peaceful and effective learning environment in their classrooms. Inspired by her journey and the nationwide challenge of addressing behavior issues in classrooms, Victoria is creating an educational technology platform aimed at empowering educators in their classroom management skills through practical insights in immersive videos by expert teachers.

Victoria has taught in both Title 1 and International elementary schools in Austin, Texas. She holds a bachelor’s degree in applied Learning and Development with a specialization in literacy from the University of Texas. Victoria is originally from San Antonio, Texas.

Beyond her commitment to education, Victoria enjoys activities such as hiking, painting, and exploring new places through travel.

Aqeela Allahyari

Aqeela Allahyari is creating environments that cultivate the intrinsic motivation to learn that all children naturally possess. She believes that curiosity should be at the core of the educational program.

As a Jacobs Fellow, her goal is to reimagine education in her region (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) by moving from the current one-size-fits-all formula to a more localized and personalized approach to teaching children. To Allahyari, success looks like this: in 12 months, she will have a new educational model for instruction based on a student’s instructional level and not on their grade level; her program will be bilingual, based on play, require fewer school hours; and it will support student success on national standardized tests. ArabiQuest is a program that teaches Arabic to native and non-native speakers using the TPR approach, while raising the cultural awareness about the language.

Allahyari has a Bachelor of Science degree in business and accounting, as well as certificates in education innovation and improvement. She likes to make soap, cook, read novels, watch movies and travel to new places.

Sidra Alvi

Sidra Alvi, a former business analyst at Bloomberg LP, has embarked on a mission to enhance equity, access, and opportunities for children with special needs in inclusive educational and societal environments.

Having transitioned from her role at Bloomberg LP to becoming a parent of a special needs child, she gained firsthand insight into the significance of providing accommodations for children with learning differences.

Driven by her passion for assisting children like her son, Sidra is actively working on establishing Kids Stay Awesome, an education consulting team comprising experts who offer evidence-based interventions, tailored curricula, teacher training, and therapy services for pre-K–3 students. Her primary focus will involve forging partnerships with private elementary schools in the United States that currently lack formal academic programs or specialized services for children with special needs.

Alvi earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration, specializing in finance, and minored in English at Stony Brook University. She is interested in early childhood education and enjoys photography and travel in her free time.

Psacoya Guinn

Psacoya Guinn is building innovative and accessible education and development pathways for students experiencing homelessness in New York City (NYC). In 2021, Guinn became an active player in finding a solution through Trinity Community School, a K–5 tuition-free community boarding school that provides families with equitable access to education and cultivates social and emotional development.

Her venture, called Trinity: Creativity. Community. Reflection, is a nonprofit that equips upper elementary and middle school students experiencing homelessness with tools to increase literacy and enhance social-emotional development through a trio of trauma-informed theatre programs. Through her work as a trauma-informed theatre-teaching artist in various shelters in New York City, Guinn witnessed many challenges that students in shelters face, such as lack of access to a consistent, well-rounded education, chronic absenteeism, and social and emotional trauma.

Guinn has a background in theatre education with a bachelor’s degree from Troy University. When she’s not working on her venture or as the education associate at the Tony award-winning New York Theatre Workshop, she works out on her Peloton or is binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Neha Gupta

Neha Gupta has been an educational entrepreneur for 15 years, serving students through tutoring, college admissions consulting, and skills training. She is extremely passionate about working with students on their durable skills for success in academics, work, and in life.

Gupta is working on a new venture that focuses on durable skills because she has found that many students lack such skills and feels that the current educational system does not teach this curriculum. She focuses on building an edtech platform that helps to teach students durable skills as well as real-life training. Her app, called Crusher, helps students to crush their college admissions interview, internship interview, and job interview with the hope of helping millions of students to learn the durable skills needed in effective communication to win over interviewers.

Gupta is a graduate of Rice University with a double major in economics and policy studies. She is interested in education, personal development, meditation, and adventure.

Heidi Mitchell

Heidi Mitchell has been an educator for nearly 20 years. Through her work, she has created collaborative programs that foster understanding among students worldwide. She is passionate about global citizenship and tackling the issue of making quality education accessible worldwide.

Mitchell created Strides 4 Education, a Your Space/Your Pace Marathon™ where participants run, walk, or hike 26.2 miles over 8 weeks regardless of age, fitness level, or location. By registering for this event, participants not only prioritize their own physical health but also directly contribute to funding education projects in West Africa, making a tangible impact on the lives of children. This innovative concept combines personal wellness, community support, and education impact, creating a powerful and accessible platform for individuals to be agents of positive change.

Mitchell has a bachelor’s degree in history from Brigham Young University and a Global Education Entrepreneurship Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania. When she is not mentoring students from across the U.S., Mitchell enjoys spending time with her husband and children, running, yoga, and watching episodes of Psych.

Natalia Rodriguez

Natalia Rodriguez is creating education solutions to help young girls and women access critical knowledge about their bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and relationships. Rodriguez is passionate about women's health, empowerment, and social justice. As a Jacobs Fellow, she wants to challenge her assumptions and to discover and more deeply understand girls’ and women’s pain points around sexual health and wellness.

As the founder of FAM Academy, Natalia teaches women in Colombia about fertility awareness methods and other health issues. FAM Academy is a platform dedicated to empowering women with the knowledge and tools to understand and manage their menstrual cycles and fertility. This platform offers age-appropriate micro-learning resources tailored to girls and women.

Rodriguez holds a bachelor's degree in business administration with a minor in design from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She has worked with kids and teenagers on improving sexual and reproductive health for more than 10 years. In her free time, Rodriguez is passionate about outdoor and experiential education.