Potentia Institute is a social impact enterprise dedicated to enhancing adult potential through science of the brain.
Leadership Team
Nicole Ofiesh, Ph.D. Co-Founder, Chief Innovation Officer
Nicole@potentiainstitute21.org
Nicole Ofiesh, Ph.D. is a cognitive behavioral scientist with expertise in the intersection of learning and adulthood. She applies this knowledge with an understanding of context and culture to explain how people learn as individuals. With a focus on "the missing middle", the time between high school and retirement, she believes an understanding of how cognition and the brain is associated with learning and performance is critical to preparing people for the needs of the 21st and 22nd centuries. Her early research brought her to the importance of self-awareness of learning and cognition. She has been in hundreds of classrooms and corporations over the years teaching and mentoring teachers, administrators and professionals from line workers to medical doctors. She is Chief Innovation Officer of Potentia Institute 21 and former Executive Director of the Stanford Schwab Learning Center and UDL Innovation Studio at Stanford, a hub where researchers, faculty, students, and technology developers can employ design thinking to meet the needs of the widest population of people. Dr. Ofiesh is the author of Teaching for the Lifespan (Corwin, 2016), author of over 25 journal articles and a regularly invited keynote speaker.
Lisa Poller Co-Founder, Chief Strategy Officer
lpoller@potentiainstitute21.org
Lisa is an entrepreneurial and strategic education innovation leader with over 30 years of experience transforming organizational impact, Lisa has been involved in technology innovation for more than two decades including work in education technology and growth tracking venture capital-backed start-ups in a variety of fields. In addition to her work at Potentia, Lisa is the Principal of Agile Fundraising and Strategy Consulting. Her background includes 20 years at CAST, a not-for-profit education innovation organization, where she served in leadership roles including Co-President/Chief Strategy Officer and prior to that Director of Strategic Advancement. During her tenure, she worked with the founding team that transformed CAST to a national leader of a dynamic new field of Universal Design for Learning. Lisa extended the culture of collaboration and innovation that resulted in increased mission impact, $100 million in funding from philanthropic and federal sources, and partnerships with over 100 leading organizations.
Board of Directors
Jose Blackorby, Ph.D.
Jose is an expert in universal design for learning and innovative educational technologies to serve diverse learners. He serves as the Senior Director of Research and Development for CAST where he oversees all of the research on Universal Design for Learning. He is an adjunct lecturer for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was the former Director of the Center for Education and Human Services at SRI. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of large-scale, multifaceted studies with research, policy, and practice implications.
Steve Carnevale
Steve has been a venture capitalist for twenty years with Point Cypress Venture and as head of private equity and crossover investing at two different hedge funds-Talkot Capital and Strome Susskind. Steve has served on boards of directors or as chairman of numerous public and private companies and has extensive expertise in the areas of corporate finance and governance issues. He also chaired audit, finance and compensation sub-committees. Steve works with the School of Business and Management for the University of San Francisco, and on the Advisory Board of the University of Michigan College of Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship.
Andrea Johnson
Andrea is an entrepreneur and investor with expertise in ecommerce, retail and marketing. Andrea is the co-founder of Rally Reader, LLC, software to assist in learning to read. Andrea is a Principal of Envelo Properties, a residential and commercial real estate company, and a corporate director of Indigo Books & Music, Inc. She also serves on the Advisory Board for Dartmouth’s Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship. Andrea was co-founder and CEO of ThisLife, a complete cloud solution for protecting, organizing, and sharing photos and videos that was acquired by Shutterfly. She has served as director of e-commerce for Pottery Barn.
Barbara Pape
Barbara is the Director of Communications for Lerner Variability Project, Digital Promise. She is also Co-founder and Board President of Grow a Teacher. Barbara has 20 years’ experience in communications, education policy, and politics. Previously, she served as Executive Producer of the Teaching & Learning conference, sponsored by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She directed communications for the American Federation of Teachers, served as editor and publisher of the first electronically delivered education newsletter, the Daily Report Card. Later she worked at the National Education Goals Panel.
Stu Shader
Stu is a Senior Business Development Manager at F5 Networks. Stu is actively involved in the Neuro Differences movement through his past work as a board member of Parents Education Network at Children's Health Council and Charles Armstrong School for Dyslexia. He is currently a member of Ambassadors Circle – UCSF Dyslexia Center. Stu created and produced Microsoft's annual "Neurodiversity in the High-Tech Workforce" Conference to raise public awareness of neurodiversity and employment. This work earned him the Microsoft Annual Ability Award (2017). The conference continues today as part of the Stanford University Schwab Learning Center. He is the parent of two dyslexic daughters.
Advisors
Tiffany Jameson, MBA, Ph.D.
Founder and Managing Partner, Grit & Flow, a consultancy-based solution provider, to guide organizations of all sizes in their inclusion efforts. Grit & Flow’s approach is multi-disciplinary, combining research, psychology, human resources, business management, and community partnerships.
Leyla Seka, MBA
Partner with the Operator Collective which brings together limited partners at 100+ of technology’s most sought-after operators, investors, and founders from diverse backgrounds to invest in and accelerate the next generation of b2b technology. Formerly she was an Executive Vice President at Salesforce. She is also on the Board of Directors for Proofpoint, Girls who Code and the UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership.
Nick Lum, JD
Entrepreneur working at the intersection of impact and technology, with a focus on reading. He is the founder of Beeline Reader, a developer of apps that helps people read better online. Prior, Nick was a corporate lawyer in the Palo Alto office of an international law firm. Nick serves on the Board of Reading is Fundamental.
Jill R. van den Heuvel, Ph.D.
Senior psychometrician with Alpine Testing Solutions. Jill focuses on applying best practices in exam design and development. Her passion is the intersection of assessments appropriately measuring the intended content and candidates being able to fully demonstrate their knowledge. Her work with assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities ignited a passion for accessibility for all and she continues to strive for full accessibility in all assessments.
Peter Shea, M.A.
Professional Developemnt Director and Learning Designer, Middlesex Community Colleges. Peter is an advocate for highly immersive learning experiences and for using learning analytics to inform learning design. He created the first open educational inclusive pedagogy resource collection for the community colleges of Massachusetts and manages a Facebook group for Instructional Designers in education.