Q2L Team: Administration, Teachers, Staff and Designers (2010)

Elisa Aragon | Executive Director of School
Elisa brings twenty-four years of experience with the New York City Department of Education to her role as Executive Director of School, having received her principal certification in 1997. Originally from Maryland, Elisa moved to “the big city” after her sophomore year at the University of Maryland (Go Terps!) and graduated from City College of New York with a Bachelor of Science degree, Magna cum laude. Elisa started teaching in the New York Public Schools in 1984 at Park West High School and then transitioned to the CMSP Model School, teaching 7th and 8th grade Humanities. She believes that all these teaching experiences prepared her for the extraordinarily challenging work of teaching in the alternative high schools. Teaching the five subjects of the GED she worked in the basement of homeless shelters, working tirelessly to effect the cycle of poverty for the young mothers who were her students, and their babies, who are our future.

After obtaining a Master of Science in Education from Hunter College with a 4.0 average, Elisa continued her post-graduate studies at Fordham University, achieving a Professional Diploma in Education and earning her SAS. Elisa continued her work in the alternative high school district in the role of Assistant Principal Administration. For eight years Elisa focused her passion and talents as an instructional leader, supporting and honing the skills of classroom teachers who were teaching the most at-risk population of students in NYC. In June 2008, Elisa was selected to participate in the elite New York City Leadership Academy, the centerpiece of Chancellor Klein’s mission of transformation for our public education system. Elisa provided administrative support during the September 2008 roll out of the innovative NYC iSchool in Soho, a selective 9 – 12 fully integrating 21st century technology in a progressive model of interdisciplinary, real-world, problem-based instruction. Elisa left her administrative position at the highly successful and respected High School of Telecommunication Arts to accept a leadership position as principal with Quest to Learn. Her dynamic leadership style, experience and deep knowledge of instruction make her a perfect fit with the goals and mission of our school.
Email earagon at q2l.org

Rebecca Rufo-Tepper | Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development
Rebecca has been working in the New York City public school system for ten years. After receiving a master’s degree in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, she taught high school and middle school English and Social Studies for seven years in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In addition, she was a staff developer at East Side Middle School, a public school in Manhattan, for two years. She is professional development facilitator for the Holocaust Educators Network in New York City and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. Rebecca’s research has focused on professional development and school reform. She has presented her work at national conferences, including NCTE, NMSA, and ISCHE. Recently, Rebecca was an adjunct instructor of English Education in Hunter College's Curriculum and Teaching Department and worked with Pam Grossman at Stanford University on a research project on New York City ELA teachers. Rebecca completed her PhD in Urban Education in May 2009.
Email rrufo-tepper at q2l.org

Arana Shapiro | Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology Integration
Arana has been working in the field of education for ten years. Her first teaching position was in the Inglewood Public School District, where she taught for three years. In Inglewood, Arana served on the district curriculum review team, helping to develop and implement new curriculum in this small district. Upon moving to New York City, Arana began working at Teachers College, Columbia University’s Early Childhood Education Program. At TC, Arana helped develop the Early Childhood Education department’s new student teacher program by visiting New York City public school classrooms and finding appropriate placement and mentorship for TC students. It was during her work at Teachers College when Arana began working with a group of educators to develop curriculum for a new school, The School at Columbia University and subsequently became a founding faculty member of The School in 2003. Arana's desire to bring new media technologies into the classroom prompted her to migrate from the classroom to the technology team at The School and later to the Lead Educational Technologist position at the Ross Institute, where she integrated technology into K-12 classrooms at both The Ross School in East Hampton and Ross Global Academy Charter School. In addition, Arana was a reading specialist for Groundwork for Youth in East New York Public Schools. She has presented research at many national education conferences, including AERA and NCTM. She received her Masters of Arts in Education with an emphasis in Second Language Learning and Acquisition from Pepperdine University, and did coursework in TC’s Communication and Education program. Currently, Arana is pursuing her Master’s in School Leadership from Bank Street.
Email ashapiro at q2l.org

Katie Salen | Executive Director of Design (Q2L)
Executive Director, Mission Lab
Katie is the Executive Director of the Institute of Play, and Professor in the Design and Technology, Parsons the New School for Design. As the lead institutional partner for Quest to Learn, she has led development of strategic partnerships, including those with Pearson, The New School, and the MacArthur Foundation DML research network. She has extensive experience working with young people in the area of media creation and game design, and has a deep knowledge of issues surrounding the potential integration of digital media, games, and technology into learning environments, like schools, libraries, and museums. Katie has published three books that have come to serve as seminal in the research field of games and learning: Rules of Play, a textbook on game design, The Game Design Reader, and The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning, all from MIT Press. She has worked as a game designer for over 10 years and is co-editor of The International Journal of Learning and Media.

Katie has received over $2.5 million in funding to support her work with the Institute of Play and Q2L in the past 2 years from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pearson Foundation, and Intel. She has degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Email ksalen at q2l.org

Robert Torres | Executive Director of Research (Q2L)
Chief Research Officer, Mission Lab
For the past two years Robert has served as the coach to the Quest to Learn design team. He recently completed his PhD in games and learning at NYU, focusing on the online game Gamestar Mechanic and its potential to help kids learn systems thinking. A primary concern of Robert's research is understanding children's cognitive development in immersive digital environments. Robert has worked as a teacher, school principal and education consultant since 1988. He taught 5th grade as a Teach for America teacher, served as a school director as part of TFA teacher induction programs and eventually became president of Teach for America’s National Faculty. As a spin-off of TFA, Robert designed and became co-director of The Learning Project One Middle School from 1995 to 1999, a school primarily serving low-income students of the Lower East Side. Since 1999, Robert has focused mostly on school design and currently runs a not for profit, designbydesign.org, which has designed or supported the creation of over 30 small progressive across New York City and Connecticut.

Robert wrote and produced a documentary film on the impact of poverty on his Puerto Rican family in New York. The film, Nuyorican Dream, premiered at the Sundance 2000 Film Festival, was acquired by and aired on HBO, and has won numerous awards in the United States and abroad. The documentary offers observations about the legacy of colonialism, the inadequate American inner-city educational system, and discrimination. Robert has a B.A. from Oberlin College, a Masters in policy and school administration at Bank Street College of Education and was a Stanford University Research Fellow.
Email rtorres at q2l.org

Faculty
C. Ross Flatt | Being, Space and Place domain teacher
Ross attended Gettysburg College where he earned a Bachelors in History, with a content specialty in World History and a particular focus on Modern Europe. Ross has taught history at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale, New Jersey and Global Studies at The Scholar’s Academy in Queens, New York.
Email rflatt at q2l.org

Lara Gerstein | Wellness domain teacher
Lara was born in Paris, France and spent her formative years living in both Paris and New York City. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch College and a Masters from New York University's Steinhardt School of Education. Lara is a trained modern dance teacher with a strong background in the integrated body and mind learning field of somatics. For the past 11 years Lara was the dance teacher at Newcomers HS, a high school for new immigrants located in Queens. In addition to directing an arts-in-education program, Lara has worked as an assistant producer for Dancing in the Streets, where she produced site-specific dance performances in public places. Lara has been a practitioner of Proprioceptive Writing, a meditative writing technique, for 15 years and is now working towards her teacher certification.
Email lgerstein at q2l.org

Alicia Iannucci | Codeworlds domain teacher
Alicia is originally from Western NY. Alicia is certified in Secondary Mathematics Education and received both a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and a Masters of Arts in Education from Adelphi University. While at Adelphi, Alicia became a member of the National Mathematics Honors Society, the National Leadership Society and the National Education Leadership Society. A former math and writing tutor, before coming to Quest, Alicia student taught at Queens High School of Teaching in Queens, New York.
Email aiannucci at q2l.org

Ameer Mourad | The Way Things Work domain teacher
Ameer is originally from Long Island, NY. He completed his undergraduate education at Queens College and his graduate work at Columbia University. Ameer is naturally inquisitive, and has spent a significant amount of time doing research in a genetics lab and has also worked as a tutor, camp counselor and a lab technician. Ameer's enthusiasm for science and engineering makes him uniquely suited for his role as the teacher for The Way Things Work domain.
Email amourad at q2l.org

Ginger Stevens | Learning Strategist
Ginger grew up in New Haven, Connecticut and has also lived in Philadelphia, Seattle, and now Queens, New York. Ginger joins Q2L from the Churchill School in Manhattan where she taught for three years. While at Churchill, Ginger worked as a 6th grade co-head teacher where she developed and delivered multi-sensory Math and English curricula and collaboratively designed and team-taught American History for students with learning disabilities. Ginger earned a bachelor of arts in Anthropology from Haverford College and a Masters of Education in childhood general and special education from the School of Education at Hunter College. Ginger has a wide-range of experiences as an environmental educator, including working at Wave Hill, a public garden in the Bronx, where she created curriculum and led a pilot planting program for adolescent patients at Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and developed and led Garden Access partnerships to provide science and art programs for students with special needs. During her time in Seattle, she was the University District Youth Coordinator at Seattle Youth Garden Works where she helped teenagers grow and sell their own vegetables through a garden-to-market education and employment program. At Q2L, Ginger will work collaboratively with all of the domain teachers to help students develop learning strategies that work best for them.
Email gstevens at q2l.org

Israel Tavares | Community Associate
Israel is Quest to Learn's Community Associate, who helps out with everything-everywhere! He was born and raised in New York City’s South Bronx, just a couple of blocks away from Yankee Stadium. As an energetic and athletic teen, Israel was always active in basketball or engaging with peers. Israel went on to study at SUNY Buffalo State College and graduated on both the Dean’s List and Honor Roll with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education, with a concentration in Mathematics. While at Buffalo State, Israel was also active in various school-student organizations. Today Israel is an achieving brother of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. In his spare time, Israel participates in a step team for his fraternity, community service projects and has a hidden passion for entertainment. Israel has been progressively involved with working with children since he was 14. He has been a part of afterschool programs, summer recreational centers for youth, day camp programs, and has received an award for “Exemplary Performance as a Teacher in an Urban School” while student teaching at Buffalo State College. Israel is happy to be a part of the Quest to Learn staff.
Email itavares at q2l.org

Mission Lab
Leah Gilliam | Director of Projects
Leah Gilliam comes to Q2L after a rich history of teaching, designing and creating user experiences using film, electronic media, games, wearable technologies and interactive installation. Until she left to pursue her love of game design and the transformative power of play in 2006, Leah was an associate professor of Electronic Arts at Bard College as well as the chair of the Arts Division. A 2008 graduate of NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Leah's recent projects include Lesberation, a board game of territory capture and tile placement inspired by the rebellious beginnings of the gay-rights movement; ID, a game of identity theft in which players compete to stockpile and represent complex minority identities; and Metrophile, a big game that transforms the NYC subway system into a playing field.
Email lgilliam at q2l.org

Chloe Varelidi | Game and Curriculum Designer
Chloe Varelidi designs games, spaces and narratives for cities, plants, animals, far away lands, children and grown ups. These designs take the form of multimedia pieces that vary from household robots to installation art to games. Chloe has a background in Architecture and Engineering and also holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons, The New School for Design. Since 2007, she has been part of the Institute of Play team, working with youth and developing innovative tools that embrace game design as an agent of learning and change. In her free time she works in her own studio, in Brooklyn. As a member of various collectives she has designed games for the Solar One Festival, the Philip Johnson Glasshouse Organization, and has exhibited in the 2008 Shenzhen / Hong Kong Biennial of Architecture & Urbanism, the 2nd Annual Exhibition of Art and Science in Beijing, the 5th Pan-Hellenic Architectural Exhibition, the 2005 New Trends in Architecture in Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific and the 2005 International Biennale, in Florence.
Email cvarelidi at q2l.org

Claudio Midolo | Game and Curriculum Designer
Claudio Midolo left Italy searching for a place to explore audio-visual design, photography and interactive systems, finding in New York City and Parsons, the ideal environment to follow his passions. During the course of the two years he spent at Parsons, the New School for Design as a MFA Design and Technology student, he focused his research on the creative possibilities of code and the intersection of digital technology, human creativity and communication. He presented the soundFishing project, a procedural sonic sampler, at the MobileMusicWorkshop08 conference in Vienna and a year later he joined the 2009 MobileHCI in Bonn, Germany with his master thesis 'Phototropic Memories. During June and July 2009, Claudio was in Zambia to implement the StopStockouts mobile advocacy campaign as an Open Society Institute fellow. He's currently a part-time faculty at Parsons teaching Foundations of Time-based Digital Media. In collaboration with the Social Science Research Council and various institutions, Claudio also works as a producer for the Design for Learning team helping to implement the New Youth City Learning Network. He is honored to join the Institute of Play and Quest To Learn teams as a game designer, creating fun learning experiences for what he sees as the school of the future. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Clio, his beloved cat Mimi and continues to follow his creative passions.
Email cmidolo at q2l.org

Rosanna Lopez | Lead Mentor Afterschool Program
Rosanna is a graduate student at the International Educational Development program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her studies focus on the uses of technology in education and development. Rosanna has combined her undergraduate degree in International Relations, and her Masters in Digital Art in the design, implementation and evaluation of arts and media programs for children and youth, to shed light on the intersection of art, technology, community participation and advocacy. Rosanna has worked on youth media projects in the Philippines, Palestine, and New York city through a number of organizations including Voices Beyond Walls, The Downtown Community Television Center, the Harlem School of the Arts and UNICEF. She is founder of the Dreams of Peace initiative, a participatory and rights-based digital storytelling program for conflict affected-children and youth. She was a fellow of the Youth Media Learning Network in 2008 and is based in New York City.

Evonne Tsang | Director of Business
As Director of Business, Evonne handles everything from human resources and bookkeeping to research and event planning. She has worked in Human Resources for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Barnes & Noble College Bookstores. As a native New Yorker fortunate enough to have attended some great public schools, she is very excited about taking part in developing innovative public education experiences for others. She has a B.A. in English with a minor in Creative Writing from NYU. She has written an interactive children's book combining prose and comic book pages that is scheduled for publication in Fall 2009. She is an avid practitioner of Google-fu and thinks wearing jeans to work is pretty keen.

Susie Greenebaum | Wellness Specialist
Susie Greenebaum (LMSW, MS Ed) brings together her work as a teacher, staff developer, school designer, social worker, and family therapist in her work as the Wellness Specialist at Q2L. She began her career as a teacher in New York City public schools, and after ten years of working in different capacities in the school system, she decided that she wanted to bring a different perspective to her work. After earning her Social Work degree, she returned to education with a new lens. In her charge to develop the Wellness program at Q2L, she infuses her knowledge of curriculum and teaching with her training in looking at human systems and how they function. She has consulted previously with Harvard University’s Project Zero, New Visions for Public Schools, and the New York City Department of Education. Currently she is an Adjunct Professor at Baruch College in the field of Educational Leadership and maintains a private practice as a psychotherapist. Susie received her Masters in Education from Bank Street College of Education and her Masters in Social Work from Smith College School for Social Work. She is currently in psychoanalytic training at the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center in downtown Manhattan.
Email sgreenebaum at q2l.org

Loretta Wolozin | Assessment Researcher
Loretta teaches and coordinates the Research and Writing curriculum for the MFA Design and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design. At Parsons, Loretta co-founded Lime Learning Lab (2002-2004), dedicated to K-12 classroom-based research of learning-media projects. Forging a partnership with The College of New Jersey’s Early & Elementary Teacher Education program, Loretta launched and participated in classroom testing of the prototype, Kinderboard on Kindertable, in two New Jersey schools with divergent demographics. Loretta’s publications include Look Duck Feet: Kinderboard on Kindertable (The Prototype) Goes to Classrooms and Literacy Inventory Protocol (LIP): Pedagogical Tool for Iterative Prototype Design. Prior to joining Parsons, Loretta put her Permanent Secondary Teacher’s Credential to work as Education Editor for 25+ years at Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company (Boston). Loretta has deep knowledge of contemporary research on learning and has worked closely with leading learning scientists, such as Rich Lehrer (Vanderbilt: mathematical and science reasoning); Bruce VanSledright (U Maryland; historical investigations in classrooms); and James. E. Ysseldyke (University of Minnesota, preeminent expert on adaptive assessment for children with disabilities.) She holds an MFA in Design & Technology (Parsons School of Design), an M.A.T. in English Education, B.A. in English Literature (The University of Santa Clara), and a Permanent California Standard Secondary Teacher’s Credential (English/History).
Email lwolozin at q2l.org