44 extraordinary leaders. One shared mission: creating a stronger public education system that affords all students the opportunity to realize their full potential.
Education Pioneers (EP) places skilled professionals in critical, non-instructional roles across public education. Our Fellows work behind the scenes to design smarter systems, build stronger organizations, and help schools deliver on their promise to students and families.
Today, we’re proud to introduce our 2025 Summer Fellowship cohort: 44 talented leaders working in education organizations across the country. This group represents a diverse mix of professional backgrounds and skill sets, contributing expertise and insights from consulting, finance, technology, and other industries.
Together, they bring an average of six years of professional experience, and 93% hold or are pursuing graduate degrees in business, policy, applied data science, and more. With this depth of interdisciplinary training, the Fellows are positioned to boost organizational capacity and help mission-driven teams translate vision into measurable results.
The 2025 Summer Fellows are embedded in 29 partner sites, with each hosting between one and eleven Fellows who are leading projects in strategy, data, operations, and project/program management. From supporting San José Unified’s workforce housing initiative to designing data-driven professional development tools in Chicago, Fellows are helping strengthen the systems that make it possible for public schools to serve students well.
Here’s a closer look at how Fellows are contributing to meaningful work across the country this summer.
Bay Area, CA
At Rocketship Public Schools, Kaley-Catherine Tobin, an MBA candidate at Duke University, is leveraging her background in consulting at Deloitte and experience in project and data management to develop tools that help school leaders navigate complex federal program requirements. Her work as a Compliance Senior Associate Fellow will strengthen compliance and operational efficiency, ultimately supporting a high-quality education for more than 10,000 students.
San José Unified School District is the largest school system in Silicon Valley. As a Program and Project Management Fellow, Erica Lee is supporting the district’s initiative to build affordable housing in order to recruit staff amid a local cost-of-living crisis. An MBA candidate at UC Berkeley and former Bain consultant, she brings deep project management experience and a strategic mindset to the role. This summer, she’s helping build the project infrastructure, navigate the entitlement process, and develop a communications and engagement plan to guide the project’s next phase.
Dallas, TX
The Commit Partnership is the nation’s largest collective impact education backbone organization. This summer, three Fellows are supporting critical initiatives focused on improving student outcomes from early childhood to postsecondary education and into the workforce.
Shamaria Jordan brings a background in nonprofit leadership and youth programming to her role supporting Commit’s Policy/State Coalition team. Her work is strengthening the team’s capacity to manage complex policy transitions and sustain momentum between legislative cycles.
Joyce Nguenkam, a former middle school teacher and leadership development coach with Teach For America, is supporting the launch and management of new initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for middle schoolers across Dallas County’s 12 largest school districts.
Celia Xie, who holds a master’s degree in international comparative education from Stanford University, brings both research experience and a venture capital perspective to her role. She is supporting Commit’s research and data analysis efforts to help uncover actionable insights that will inform systemic change.
Explore our new case study to learn more about how EP Fellows have added capacity to Commit’s team over time.
Chicago, IL
Eleven Summer Fellows are embedded within Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the nation’s fourth-largest school district. CPS has hosted more than 185 EP Fellows since 2009, including Shruti Saxena (2013), who completed her Fellowship in the district and has since helped place new Fellows across departments.
Two of the 2025 Summer Fellows—Rohit Kalro and Ibrahiim El-Amiin—are leading projects focused on expanding student access to computer science and strengthening districtwide compliance practices.
Rohit is serving as a Mapping Computer Science Pathways in Schools Fellow, where he is using data to increase exposure to tech opportunities for students. He holds a master’s degree in education policy and analysis from Harvard University and brings experience using data to drive large-scale student interventions. This summer, Rohit is visualizing data to identify clear, high-opportunity pathways that span elementary through high school.
Ibrahiim is a PhD candidate in educational policy with a strong background in student advocacy and policy implementation. He has served as a high school college advisor, and he helped design Morehouse College’s academic success course for students on academic probation. At CPS, he is applying that expertise to help redesign the district’s Physical Restraint and Time Out (PRTO) policies, and develop a PRTO 2.0 framework that will support student well-being and long-term sustainability.
Innovare is a Chicago-based edtech company co-founded by EP Alumni 2017 EP Alum Nicholas Freeman (2017) and AJ DeLeón (2013), who are now paying it forward by hosting EP Fellows at their organization. This summer, two Fellows are helping expand its impact and strengthen the systems that power its growth.
Aman Duvey’s background includes experience in sales strategy, brand engagement, and enrollment marketing, along with an MBA from Duke University. His skill set is well-suited to his role as an Education Marketing Fellow, where he is designing professional learning modules that help education leaders use data more effectively. This summer, he’s developing targeted training curricula that translate complex data into actionable insights to support school improvement.
Matheus Dias brings an MBA in project management and hands-on experience in data analysis, visualization, and operational efficiency to his role as a Finance Operations Fellow. His background makes him well-suited to support the organization’s efforts to evaluate and improve internal financial processes, strengthen compliance systems, and build the operational foundation needed for continued growth.
New York, NY
At Explore Schools, a Brooklyn-based charter network serving K–8 students across three schools, Jeysa Martinez is serving as a Special Projects Fellow. Jeysa is a master’s student in social work at Columbia University with a background in youth development, curriculum design, and program operations. At Explore, Jeysa is supporting the execution of summer and back-to-school initiatives, playing a central role in planning and coordinating network-wide professional development to help set staff and school leaders up for a strong start to the next school year.
Kicking Off in Dallas
The 2025 Summer Fellowship officially launched in early June with a multi-day convening in Dallas. This event gave Fellows the chance to explore new perspectives on leadership, strengthen their understanding of the education landscape, and prepare to make the most of their summer placements.
The Fellows heard directly from local EP Alumni—Jessica Davis (2015), Julia Hosch (2020), and Dhruv Suryavanshi (2024)—who shared their professional journeys and insights about building lasting impact in education. Fellows also visited five local organizations, including EP partner Empower Schools, to see systems-level work in action and ground their learning in real-world context.
Looking Ahead
With the Summer Fellowship now underway, the 2025 cohort is already building the internal capacity of education organizations across the country and helping drive lasting change behind the scenes.
We’ll be sharing updates and stories throughout the summer. Follow us on LinkedIn to meet the Fellows, explore their work, and see their impact unfold.
Interested in bringing a Summer or Impact Fellow to your organization? Reach out to our team at partnerships@educationpioneers.org to learn more.
