Samantha Williams

Samantha Williams is the Global Director for Girls’ Education at Teach For All. She currently resides in New Orleans. Previously, she served as Chief of Staff to the CEO after spending five years in Johannesburg establishing Teach For All’s organizational operations in Africa. In this role, she led the organization’s external relations, growth strategy, and partner support in the region.

Before joining Teach For All, Samantha worked in South Africa at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, and later as a researcher and project manager for Harvard University. She began her career working in high school dropout prevention at Communities In Schools of Georgia in Atlanta. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of the Witwatersrand, and Georgetown University, where she is on the Board of Trustees of the George F. Baker Scholars Program. She also writes about politics, race, identity, gender, and belonging and produces a weekly newsletter.

Kate Sultuska

Kate Sultuska is Absentee Shawnee. She grew up in Oklahoma City and graduated from Oklahoma City Public Schools. She attended Dartmouth and University of Oklahoma. Kate is a Teach For America alum, an inclusion educator, a co-founder of Sovereign Community School - the first Indigenous created and led charter school in Oklahoma. She served as a member of the Teach For America Native Alliance Advisory Council. Kate is an artist and educator which brings her deep beliefs in a better world to all her engagements. Her specializations in DEI work include transformational in person and virtual engagements around recruitment, retention, and development of Native American professionals, in depth interviews and data analysis to create an inclusive approach to creating inclusion and equity at the organizational and cultural level, as well as working with teams on the community led design process in order to create tools that truly meet the needs of the community being served. Kate has 5 years of experience coaching and leading startups, 3 years of experience in embedding DEI into board function, 6 years educating teams of professionals about intergenerational trauma and utilizing trauma informed practices, 6 years of experience training educators to understand and combat systemic racism to best serve communities.

Archana Ramachandra

Archana Ramachandran is a learner and educator with extensive experiences in K-12 and adult learning contexts across the social and corporate sectors. Archana believes in the power of human potential to collectively create the world we want to see. During her time as City Director leading the Chennai site at Teach for India (TFI), she recognized the critical role of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for the work to be connected and sustainable, and to unlock human potential in all members of the community. She focused on raising awareness and creating practices for a more diverse and equitable team through levers such as Hiring, Team Culture, Opportunities for Growth and Learning etc. She is an advocate of reflection and transformation along the DEI dimensions at both team and organizational levels to create long-term impact in any area.

She currently works with India Leaders for Social Sector, a leadership development organization for the social sector. Prior to her time with TFI, Archana worked with Infosys Leadership Institute and Boston Public Schools in the areas of Human Capital, Competency Development, Change Management and Diversity and Inclusion. Archana is an alumna of the Master’s Program in Education (Ed.M.) at Harvard Graduate School of Education and holds degrees in Management and Commerce. She lives in the city of Chennai in India, a place that she proudly calls home!

Shmona Simpson MPH, PhD

Shmona Simpson is a scientist-strategist and activist, working at the intersection of medical innovation and social justice. Her scientific specialty is new tools and strategies to tackle pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential.

She is a former Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Fellow & Program Officer, where she worked to strengthen health systems and was a founding member of the Cultural Confluence Employee Research Group. Prior to joining the Foundation, Shmona was a Scientist at Oxford University, researching how genetics influence the outcome of HIV infection in West Africa, and an activist in the Decolonize Curricula movement. She served as Senior Research Officer to the Cayman Islands Government during the Chikungunya and Zika outbreaks. Shmona was formerly an Immunologist with the UK’s Center for Emergency Preparedness, determining the safety and efficacy of new vaccines. She started her career in infectious diseases at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Shmona read for a Doctorate in Clinical Medicine (Immunology) at Oxford University where she was Chair of the Black Rhodes Scholars Association. Her passions include the decolonization and democratization of biomedical innovation. In her spare time, she volunteers her time towards advancing the careers of women in STEM.

Jeet Patel

Jeet Patel has been working in the education sector for the past 14 years, focusing on teacher recruitment, curriculum design, and teacher coaching. He believes deeply in the values of diversity and inclusion as a means to help make our world a more just and equitable place for all people. He has focused on centering diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices in leadership development, talent acquisition, team management, team culture, executive and strategic coaching, and mindsets that underpin all of these efforts.

Jeet began his career teaching middle school science and has focused his time and efforts in the American landscape as well as the South Asia, African, and Middle East regions. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in Psychology and Spanish, and a Master of Science for Teachers from PACE University School of Education. He has spent the last 8 years in Mumbai and recently moved back to Detroit, Michigan, USA to be closer to his family and friends. He is currently the Global Recruitment Lead at Teach For All.

Ana Camila Medina

Ana Camila Medina is the Head of Program of Teach for Colombia. Since childhood, she has been passionate about social justice as a roadmap towards equity, diversity and inclusion. She holds an Ed.M from Harvard University, is a current Master’s student in Applied Economics, and is a DEI and Curriculum specialist. In the field of DEI, she and the Teach for Colombia team have quickly advanced structural changes in the organization to make DEI a reality in different areas, from recruitment to training and even funding. Colombia´s work in DEI has become a Latin American and worldwide benchmark for the Teach for All Network. In the field of Curriculum, Ana is currently a curriculum consultant for a McKinsey Career Accelerator Program for Diverse Talent. She was also the Chief Officer for Curriculum development in the Ministry of Education of Colombia for two years (2016-2018) and also worked as a curriculum designer in the McKinsey Social Initiative Generation (2015).

Karen Lieu

Karen Lieu currently leads the Global Talent Acquisition team at Teach For All. For the past 6 years, Karen has partnered with hiring managers and senior leaders to recruit talent across the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and Middle East and embed inclusive recruitment practices for a globally dispersed, remote global organization.

Karen received her BS in Business from Cornell University and her law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. As the first person in her family to attend university, a daughter of refugees and a product of the New York City public school system, she feels deeply connected to our diversity, equity and inclusiveness work.

Bárbara Escudero

Bárbara Escudero is a consultant and transformational coach. Bárbara actively leverages her passion for and commitment to empowerment, social justice, identity/personal development and liberatory pedagogy. As a first-generation Honduran/Puerto Rican-American and education-leader with over twenty years’ experience, her entire life journey has led her to this work. Bárbara deeply believes that impactful and lasting transformational change comes first from within. Because our "who" informs our "how" and our "what," Bárbara’s work focuses on the healing, unlearning and learning processes; supporting her clients to engage in the deep core and foundational work required to actualize the life and impact they seek to make.

Bárbara graduated with her BS from Cornell University and her MA Bilingual/Bicultural Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Bárbara is a certified, Professional Life and Leadership Coach having completed her training through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). Her experience in education includes proudly serving as a classroom teacher for twelve years and leading the national work on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Linguistically Responsive teaching at Teach For America for seven years – impacting thousands of classroom teachers and the students/communities they serve across 52 regions nationwide. Bárbara was born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, NY - New York City is proudly home.

Anasstassia Baichorova

Anasstassia Baichorova is a deeply committed ally and accomplice in people’s struggle for liberation and equality. She has been actively involved in global movements for equity and decolonization over the last 18 years in different countries. For the last seven years she has worked at Teach For All by leading Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work internally and with its network of 59 global partners, focusing on how equity aligned organizations and movements are built, transformed, and supported.

Anasstassia has 7 years of experience coaching CEOs and Executive directors in embedding DEI into organizational culture, practices and decisions, 10 years of experience coaching teams and functions and 15 years of leading learning experience with focus on racial equity, allyship and solidarity, interrupting microaggressions, dismantling systeming racism, unconscious bias mitigation, intercultural conflict resolution.

Prior to Teach For All, she focused on diversity recruitment at Teach for America. She holds degrees from Cornell Institute of Public Affairs, PACE University School of Education, and a bachelor's degree in Inequalities from Cornell University. She currently resides in Miami, Florida, USA, but her heart and ways of working are deeply influenced by her indigenous family in the Caucasus mountains and Belarus where she was raised.

Tracie Michelle Benally

Tracie Michelle Benally is a Diné woman from the Eastern Navajo Nation; her clans are Bitahnii (Folded Arms People) and Tó’dích’íi’nii (Bitter Water). She was born and raised in the small town of Crownpoint, New Mexico. She graduated from Smith College, where she majored in American Studies with an emphasis in Indigenous Histories and Education, and fulfilled a Concentration in Women’s Education with an emphasis in Indigenous Girls’ Education.Benally has previously worked as an independent contractor for the Indian Health Service, focusing on grant writing for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault prevention programming. She is an alum of Teach For America and served in her home community, where she headed volunteer efforts to combat the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, raising over $50,000 to provide food and supplies for families during tribal lockdowns. Most recently, she has worked in recruitment, where she worked to increase diversity in education.She is passionate about DEI, organizing, and working towards a better world for future generations. She holds the Navajo phrase “T’áá hwó’ ají t’éego,” which translates to “it’s up to you,” close to her heart.

Leidy Cabrera

Leidy Cabrera is the CEO and Co-founder of CASA MUJER, the first Mexican Fintech company that delivers financial housing services to women that had been systematically excluded from the financial system because of their background.  Prior to this, she was the regional director of Teach for México in the Northeast for 5 years. She is also a senior consultant for global companies on organizational climate issues, development of conscious leadership, and supporting them on the creation of more inclusive team works and atmospheres. 

Leidy was born in Mexico City and grew up in Memphis Tennessee. She attended Tecnológico de Monterrey, graduating in 2009, and went to earn an MBA from EGADE Business School in 2013. Following her graduation from EGADE, she served in leadership with an international finance company before choosing to pursue work she found most meaningful in the social sector.

While pursuing her Master’s Degree with specialization in Social Entrepreneurship, Leidy applied to Teach for Mexico to learn more about one of Mexico’s most pressing challenges: education. She was a DEI Fellow for Teach for All in 2018 and since then has been working relentlessly to build a more equitable society.

Tamara Urquhart

Tamara Urquhart has a passion for equity work fueled by the statement that “talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not.” Beginning her career as an elementary school teacher in Atlanta, Tamara sought to make a direct impact with young children, providing them access to a high-quality education. She then joined Teach For America as a Recruitment Director in Dallas, TX, growing local recruitment 200% over 3 years. She later rose to the positions as Managing Director, and later Vice President of Recruitment at Teach For America, managing, training, and developing a team of over 50 full-time staff across the country to achieve ambitious recruitment results.

She then took on the role as Vice President of Recruitment, Admissions, and the Black Educators Initiative at Urban Teachers, responsible for redesigning the recruitment and admissions processes for the organization, managing the marketing function, and furthering the impact of the Black Educators Initiative – a $25 million initiative designed to increase the recruitment and retention of Black educators with a strong focus on Black male educators. With over 15 years of experience in talent work, Tamara is an expert in talent recruitment and management.

Tamara has lived all over the country, from big cities to small towns. She now calls the Washington, DC area home. Tamara is a graduate of Cornell University with degrees in Government and Economics and minors in International Relations, Latin American Studies, and Law & Society.

Krittika Vishwanath

Krittika Vishwanath is an educator and a facilitator. She has more than 15 years of experience in strategy, leadership development and innovation in the field of education, education technology, training, human rights, environment, child rights and ICTs. She has proven experience in working on issues around diversity, equity and inclusion from a Global South perspective and brings this lens into the work she has done in strategy development, curriculum development, facilitation, stakeholder management, advocacy, project management, fundraising and monitoring & evaluation. She especially loves leading DEI processes in team and people development, managing change management processes, employee wellbeing through a lens of feminist leadership - across multilateral organisations, governments, grassroot NGOs, educational institutions amongst others. Her work has stemmed across international organizations like Amnesty International, Teach For All, Greenpeace and OHCHR.

Rachel Brody

Rachel Brody currently leads the Global Resources and Partnerships team at Teach For All, overseeing Initiatives that address critical areas such as Climate Change Education, Education in Emergency Contexts, Girls Education, Inclusive Education, Educational Leadership and the Future of Work.  Alongside the Initiative focus areas, the team houses our global grantmaking function that enables advancement across the Initiative areas and beyond to accelerate progress toward all students having the opportunity to create a better world for themselves and all of us.  Prior to joining staff at Teach For All, Rachel led the national Special Education team at Teach For America that created pathways for special and general educators to build the mindset, skills and knowledge to support learners with disabilities and diverse learning needs. Rachel’s career in education began in Washington, DC where she taught for 6 years and earned her M.Ed in Special Education from George Mason University. With deep experience and interest in Universal Design for Learning, Culturally Responsive Practices, and Disability Inclusion and Justice initiatives, Rachel designed and facilitated graduate courses for The Center for Inspired Teaching, has served on boards for the Universal Design for Learning – Implementation and Research Network and the Division for International Special Education Services of the Council for Exceptional Children and has worked with schools, nonprofits, governmental organizations and corporations from multiple contexts to support their work to enable equitable practices for people with learning differences and disabilities.  She lives in Seattle, Washington with her toddler, husband and two cats.

Sierra Gomez

Sierra Gomez (She/Her) identifies as a Mexican American woman invested in empowering community voice. As a leader in DEI, coaching, recruitment and advocacy, she is driven by her core values of empathy, equity, urgency, and impact. Equitable practices for students, educators, teams, and communities are my passion. She uses her skills to critically analyze, plan, and facilitate transformational growth for diverse intersectional communities. She currently leads as a recruitment director with Teach for America and as a co Troop Leader assisting with the San Francisco chapter of the Radical Monarchs.