Our team

Director, Pre-K to 12 Educational Systems Program; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND

Heather Schwartz is an education researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. She studies housing and education policies intended to reduce disparities between children in higher- and lower-income families. She lives in New Orleans, and she received her Ph.D. in education policy from Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Chief Content Office, BloomBoard

Jill Cowart is the Chief Content Officer at BloomBoard, Inc., the leading platform for enabling educator advancement via micro-credentials, a form of micro-certification, in the US. Prior to this role, Jill served as Assistant Superintendent of Academic Content at the Louisiana Department of Education, as a school principal, Academic Dean, and teacher. As a life-long educator, she has worked on a number of innovative projects such as implementing STEM pathways for high school students, partnering with local and national organizations to develop quality curriculum, implementing curriculum-aligned remediation tools for struggling students, and increasing student engagement in learning. Jill is passionate about providing quality environmental education to all students in Louisiana. She received her M.A. degree in Curriculum and Instruction from LSU and B.A. degree in Elementary Education from Southeastern Louisiana University.


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Ripple Effect Director of Field-Based Learning and independent consultant

For twenty years, Karen was an 8th grade science teacher and director of science curriculum at the International School of Louisiana. Karen’s passion for designing and enacting field-based learning experiences is at the center of her practice as a teacher and teacher-leader. She recently completed her certification as a Louisiana Master Naturalist and holds encyclopedic knowledge of the many local water bodies and other locations for staging inquiry-based field experiences for students and teachers. Karen’s expertise lies in pushing teachers outside the confines of their classroom (and often, outside their comfort zones) to learn how to use local environments to facilitate inquiry-based learning experiences. She teaches teachers how to define environmental questions with students, then collect and analyze data in pursuit of those questions. Karen has won numerous awards for her teaching and leadership in science education. She attended Xavier University of Louisiana, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology.

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Teacher, KIPP New Jersey

Dr. Marcus Woods has been a social studies teacher in Central City New Orleans for the past 5 years. Prior to that, Marcus was a project assistant at the Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs in Camden, New Jersey. Marcus was in charge of program evaluation projects for a youth mentoring program in Philadelphia, a peer recovery program in South Jersey, and the Camden City Public Schools. Marcus earned a B.A. in English from Mcdaniel College and an M.P.A, and a PhD in Childhood Studies from Rutgers University. Marcus’ research centers on identifying the formation of urban youth as well as qualitative methodologies that highlight youth voices.

Attorney, Project on Predatory Student Lending 

Rebecca Eisenbrey is an attorney at the Project on Predatory Student Lending in Boston, Massachusetts, where she uses litigation and advocacy to reduce predatory practices in higher education, relieve current and future borrowers from fraudulent student loan debt, and drive systemic changes that will make higher education more affordable and equitable for future generations. Before moving to Boston, she spent four years in Texas representing low-wage workers in employment disputes and two years in New Orleans as a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She received her bachelor’s degree in French from Yale University and her JD from the University of Michigan School of Law.

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Assistant Professor, CUNY

Shreya Subramani is a sociocultural anthropologist and professor of Law & Society at City University of New York, John Jay College. Specializing in legal and political anthropology and Black studies, her ethnographic research explores the relations between progressive criminal justice reforms and the shifting experiential geographies of city life in New Orleans. Before her professorship, Shreya lived in New Orleans and worked with organizations providing reentry services for formerly incarcerated people and their families. Her research and pedagogy seek to unpack the conditions of racialized environmental and material inequality and work toward their abolition.

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Chief of Staff, Operational Effectiveness, Business Insider

Dr. Thea Charles serves as Chief of Staff for the Product & Technology Organization at Business Insider, where she provides strategic guidance to senior leadership, facilitates communication, and ensures organizational alignment. Her role includes overseeing operational processes and managing the program management team to keep the Product & Technology teams running smoothly. She brings a diverse skill set to her position on the Ripple Effect board, including effective communication, risk mitigation, and strategic planning honed through her roles as a Founder of Catalytic Consulting, Head of Knowledge and Impact at Siegel Family Endowment, Project Director of STEM Program Development at Girls, Inc. of New York City, School Accountability Planning Associate at the NYC Department of Education, and Chemistry teacher and Field Development Coach - Science Education at TNTP. Outside work her hobbies are trying out new recipes, perfecting her baking recipes, and getting 10k steps daily by walking around NYC!

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Associate Sociologist, RAND Corporation; Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Vanessa Parks (she/her) is an associate sociologist at RAND and a professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her work explores issues related to the environment, public policy, and health. Much of her work is focused on promoting public health preparedness and health equity in places that have been historically marginalized and overburdened with longstanding environmental and health concerns. Her recent projects examine alcohol use after the COVID-19 pandemic, health care in Puerto Rico, public health incident management, equity in federal mitigation programming, geographic variation of housing cost burden, and the feasibility of AI research park. Prior to joining RAND, Parks was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mississippi's Center for Population Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Louisiana State University.

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