Qualification:PhD
Affiliation: Practical Education Network
Current Designation: Founder & CEO
Heather is an engineer by training, having completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2015. While a graduate student, Heather developed a vision for seeing MIT-style hands-on learning environments manifest around the globe. She became active in the MIT D-Lab, where she co-founded the D-Lab: Education class, mentoring dozens of students in projects spanning four continents. Heather has lived in Ghana since 2016, where she has led Practical Education Network (PEN) in the training of thousands of West African STEM teachers to deploy experiential pedagogies. In that process, she has developed partnerships with several stakeholders in the education ecosystem, co-created innovative low-cost STEM training content, built a budding team, and developed models for scaling the impact. Starting in 2018, Heather also assumed a position of Lecturer at Ashesi University, where she is helping build a new engineering program to train ethical leaders for Africa’s future.