With more than two decades of experience in school, research, and business environments, Kim leads the KLS middle and upper school.  Most recently, she was the Chief of Academics at US Performance Academy — an online middle-high school for elite athletes. During her career, she has held key leadership roles and led strategic initiatives at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, National Sports Academy, Emergent Academy and LRN.  She has also been a consultant for a diverse set of companies and organizations. Kim holds a B.S. in Physics from Marlboro College, an M.S. in Astrophysics from the University of Arizona, and an M.Ed from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Kim and her husband love traveling, hiking, kayaking and trying to keep up with their four children.

Chi-Ray graduated from Stanford University with B.A. and M.S. degrees in Biomechanical Engineering. He spent a few years applying his studies as General Manager for a local company, prototyping and manufacturing coronary stents. Soon, he decided to pursue his interest in system thinking, and he became an operations generalist for small-to-mid-sized organizations. Chi-Ray has held a number of roles similar to what he does at KLS, including serving as Director of Operations, Technology, and Facilities at a large church in Boston; working as Program Director for the Digital Media Academy at Stanford; and most recently, working as Director of IT and Employee Services at One Kings Lane (the online home goods retailer). In his spare time, Chi-Ray has been known to lead scouts, root for the New England Patriots, play banjo, listen to country music, wish he had a pick-up truck, and dream of seeing the U.S. on an extended RV trip with his wife, Erica, and kids, Timothy and Megan. You'd never guess he was born in Boston and raised in L.A. Chi-Ray has been a member of the KLS team since its founding in 2014. 

Antje’s professional life began with three years of vocational training at a 4-star hotel in Southern Germany, where she became a Certified Specialist in Hotel Business. After her training, she lived and worked in Berlin. In desperate need of sunshine, and after winning a competition for hotel business graduates, Antje transferred to a 5-star golf and spa resort hotel on the Balearic Island of Majorca. She supported the Front Office team for two years and later supported the Sales and Marketing department. While there, she learned Spanish, some Catalan, some golf, and acquired a love for exotic and local foods specialties like Ensaimada, Frit Mallorquín, and tapas. After about four years, Antje said, “¡Adéu, Palma!” and followed her husband to Lausanne, Switzerland. She added goat cheese fondue and excellent chocolate to her list of favorite foods, French and some Japanese to her languages, and discovered her love of hiking. Since 2012, Antje has called the Bay Area her home, where she enjoys poké, ramen, sushi, and (occasionally) grass-fed beef. She went back to school to earn a B.S. in Business Management from Western Governors University; this self-paced online program is one of the reasons she became a passionate advocate for student-centered learning. On the weekends, Antje often goes “glamping” with her husband and two young girls in their tiny house Cricket Trailer. She loves baking pastries and sumi-e painting (although, the black ink has been dried up for many, many months now). Antje is excited to be part of the KLS team and help with sailing the seas of learner-centered education! 

Saba was a Storytelling & Content Marketing Intern at KLS before joining the team full-time as our Office Administrator & Marketing Associate. At Berkeley, she fell in love with both teaching and editorial work. She volunteered at her local Sunday school every weekend and interned at the 1947 Partition Archive, where she was able to educate a global audience about the history of the Indian subcontinent. Saba also managed the Partition Archive's social media accounts and learned the importance of strong storytelling in content marketing. She sees education as being the motivating factor behind all of her past experiences; she has a desire to constantly acquire and share knowledge.

For Saba, it has been exciting to learn about the KLS focus on social-emotional learning and personalized goals. She has seen firsthand how, the more children are empowered and respected, the more they surprise the world with their capabilities. Saba also has a special affinity for students who are learning English as a second language. Since she moved from Pakistan in second grade, she understands children’s struggles to communicate and assimilate after moving to a new country. As a part-time teacher at a local tutoring center, she was able to work closely with immigrant students to help them link their mother tongue to English.

In her free time, Saba enjoys visiting family, teaching her cockatiel to whistle via YouTube videos, doing henna tattoos for brides, and auditing classes at her alma mater “just for fun.” She often wishes she was a student at KLS and could participate in the same activities as the students, but she is enjoying her role on staff very much! 

Rachel believes that relationships are the foundation to growth and success in the classroom and is excited to be a part of a team that places students at the center of all choices. Rachel’s passion for teaching was developed early while teaching dance in her hometown in Southern California. While earning her B.A. in Psychology at UC San Diego, she continued developing her interest in education as a mentor in various San Diego public schools and as a tutor at a progressive school in La Jolla, California. Her studies as an undergraduate student motivated her to join Teach For America as a Las Vegas Valley Corps Member in 2012 and she has been committed to developing strong readers and joyful learners ever since! During her two years in Las Vegas, she taught 3rd grade and earned her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from UNLV.  In 2014, Rachel moved to the Bay Area and has spent the past four years in various roles at Rocketship Public Schools: 3rd and 4th grade Humanities Teacher, Planning Specialist, and most recently, Manager on the Humanities Team supporting teachers through curriculum and professional development. In her free time, she enjoys taking tap and yoga classes, learning to play the piano, listening to podcasts, and spending time with her rabbit, dog, and cat!  

Heather is a lifelong learner and Florida native on a mission to shake up education. She holds a B.A. in Modern Languages from the University of Central Florida, and she has also studied Cognitive Science at the master’s level. She is delighted to spend her days experimenting and digging deep into innovative learning models and helping to develop a dynamic and rigorous personalized learning program. Heather has taught students from age 5 to 65 in a range of subjects, from the Université de Lille in France to Florida to California. She especially loves working with elementary school kiddos, as they ask the most interesting questions and have a contagious enthusiasm for learning. Her hobbies include cooking and baking dishes from around the world, stinky cheese, hiking in National Parks, reading, travel, belly dancing to music of all kinds, and laughing as much as possible. Heather has been a member of the KLS team since its founding in 2014. 

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Superior, Kelsey earned her bachelor’s in Elementary Education while playing for the varsity basketball team. Her athletic experience exposed her to the world of international teaching, and Kelsey embarked on a four-year teaching career overseas, certified to deliver England's National Curriculum. In Prague, the Czech Republic, and Qatar, she taught students of all ages and learned about the local cultures. She began her master’s program in 2015 in Mallorca, Spain, and she is currently pursuing a degree and certification in English as a Second Language. Since childhood, Kelsey has loved being a part of the education scene – she built makeshift classrooms in the basement of her home where all the neighborhood children would come together to learn. You could say she’s always been a believer in the mixed-aged, “one room schoolhouse” shared learning experience. She loves helping others find their passions within academics and personal pursuits. Kelsey is especially excited to join the team at KLS, a place that is providing meaningful, purposeful, relevant, and respectful teaching/learning experiences to students and families. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, camping, museums, music, and spending time with family and friends. She also enjoys cheering on the Golden State Warriors, which makes working in the Bay Area an even more exciting opportunity! 

Allie has worked as a software engineer and program manager in the tech industry for over 10 years. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Beijing Normal University and an M.S. in Computer Science from Colorado Technical University.  She discovered her passion for education and youth empowerment while volunteering for non-profit educational foundations. She has worked for Galileo Innovation Summer Camp as the lead computer programming instructor and in 2014, she began working as a Computer Science instructor at CSU Monterey Bay and Foothill College. Allie is a certified YES! mindfulness and stress management instructor and has taught at schools such as Stanford University, San Jose University, Gunn High, Palo Alto High, Lynbrook High. Her specialties include project-based learning for STEM education, mindfulness, and SEL. Allie is also a certified yoga and meditation instructor and she teaches yoga at Apple, Cisco and YMCA.

Jacob was born and raised in San Francisco and first performed music professionally at 15. After seeking a BA in Music Performance at UCSC, he pursued a MOM at SF State University with an emphasis in Music History. He has toured and recorded with some top artists in the field including Nicki Minaj, Zap Mama and Chris Isaak, scored movies and theater productions. In between performances and recordings, Jacob taught at Universities in US and Canada and helped to design the music curriculum for Waldorf elementary and middle school.  He is passionate about music education and excited to become a member of the Khan Lab School team.

Melissa helps students make giant leaps in learning by maximizing student engagement and ownership of the learning process. While earning her master’s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Florida, Melissa gained a keen interest in blended learning and technology. Her research into educational technology led her to complete a pilot internship with Florida Virtual School and become a counselor for UF’s Digital Kids Tech Camp. Upon graduating, Melissa returned to her hometown of Tampa, FL where she taught for seven years in Title 1 elementary schools. Melissa began her career as a second grade teacher for predominantly low-income students, the majority of whom spoke English as a second language. She researched and incorporated alternative teaching methods, such as inductive teaching and project-based learning, to continually encourage critical thinking and discussion in the classroom. After two years, she transferred to Dunbar Elementary, an inner-city magnet school focused on medical and scientific exploration. Melissa taught second grade and gifted Math and Science before eventually becoming a fifth grade Math and Science instructor. In this role, Melissa challenged students to learn through engagement in authentic and open-ended problems they are likely to face in the future. This problem-based, student-centered approach to teaching and learning fostered 100% active participation and mastery of standards. Melissa recently spent a year in the Philippines, where she had the opportunity to learn more about her heritage and assist in opening a school for children in rural Leyte. When Melissa isn't learning something new with students, she enjoys playing the ukulele, going on adventures, and winning at board games. She is most excited about collaborating with students in her day-to-day work. 

Raquel hails from Madrid, Spain. She worked with the European Space Agency (ESA) for twelve years in projects related to Earth Observation as a Quality Assurance manager. She believes in quality for everything in life; be it products, processes or relationships. Raquel has always been interested in education. As a result, she got a degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid which allowed her to teach in the public school system in Spain.  While working as an engineer for ESA,  she volunteered with the Spanish Red Cross, teaching Spanish language and culture to immigrant children. She soon realized the big impact that this work had on both her and the children, and she felt passionate about it. She enrolled in the Faculty of Psychology at UNED and started on a new degree until she moved to California five years ago. At this time, she is a few credits away from finishing her degree.

Since moving to the Bay Area, she has been teaching Spanish at Stanford University as a volunteer at the Bechtel International Center. She has also been tutoring elementary, middle and high schoolers as well as teaching professional adults to learn or improve their Spanish skills. In her free time, Raquel enjoys discovering the National Parks (she hiked Half Dome in Yosemite last year) and learning about their flora and fauna. In the last five years she and her family have visited seventeen National Parks in the U.S. Her daughter Lucía has proudly become a Junior Ranger at each of them. She loves nature and she is saddened to see the environment destroyed without any care about the impact that it may have in the present and in the future. Apart from hiking and biking, she loves singing and having fun with friends around a table, chatting during the “sobremesa” (that wonderful cell phone-free situation where you keep talking after the meal has ended with people with whom you shared your lunch or dinner).

Born in Mumbai, India, Nikita moved with her family to California when she was two years old. Nikita grew up in the Bay Area and attended college at UC Berkeley where she received her B.A. in Public Health. Her first major foray into the field of education, from which she would never look back, happened when she joined Teach for America as a 5th grade teacher for Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada. After a few years of roaming the Red Rocks and enjoying the Vegas sunshine, Nikita returned to her beloved California. She spent two more years as an upper elementary Literacy teacher at a San Jose charter school before a short stint as a Curriculum Designer at an EdTech startup in San Francisco. Since her very first year in the classroom, Nikita has valued the importance of personalized and deeper learning and has strived to find the balance between inquiry and mastery in her teaching and learning experiences. Nikita is passionate about children's literature and loves to spend her free time hiking, trying (and often failing at) new recipes, and traveling.  

Brett earned his B.A. in English Literature from DePauw University and his M.A.T from Gonzaga University with a concentration in Secondary Education. Before joining Khan Lab School, Brett spent five years at Tsinghua International School in Beijing, China, where he taught World Literature, AP English Literature, and served as the Head of the English Language Arts Department. During his time at Tsinghua, Brett established a summer reading program and helped develop best standards and practices for argumentative writing. Brett specializes in using literature to explore issues of social justice, most recently using One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to examine how the disenfranchised can use writing to challenge and change the society they live in. In recent years, Brett and his students have experimented with using new media to tell stories, from podcasts and websites to video games and augmented reality. Brett’s favorite part of being an educator is encouraging students to consider their place in the world, and how they can participate ethically and responsibly as citizens of a plural society.

Needless to say, Brett is an avid reader. He is particularly interested in post-modernist literature and his favorite authors are Kafka, Flannery O'Connor and Donald Barthelme. Outside of class, Brett enjoys exploring new places and parks with his wife Georgia, son Vincent and dog Dahuang.

 

Derek grew up in Monroe and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the third of four children to a Texan father and French mother. In addition to a very strange accent that he’s since lost, his upbringing instilled in him a love of languages, cultures, and travel that he’s maintained to this day. Eager to leave the “Deep South” after high school, Derek went to the only slightly less southern University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He entered college a pre-med chemistry major and exited it fully embracing his passion for the humanities, earning a B.A. in history and a minor in creative writing.

After graduation Derek moved to France, where he taught English as a Second Language to elementary students from largely immigrant communities in the suburban regions outside Bordeaux. A year later he returned to the U.S. to begin his graduate education at Stanford University. In the years since, he’s earned his M.A. in history, married his lovely wife Ariel, moved back to France to conduct archival research in Paris, and then moved back to the Bay Area to work on his dissertation while Ariel earned her Master’s in Library and Information Sciences. Along the way, he’s also taught numerous history and interdisciplinary courses at Stanford: 20th century U.S. history, Modern Europe and the World, history of science, art history, and more. His research looks at memory, mythmaking, and the intersection of politics and culture in modern France.

Now that Derek has successfully taught 1st through 5th graders and freshman through senior undergraduates, he is delighted to join Khan Lab School and complete his pedagogy bingo card by teaching middle-and high-school students. In addition to the importance of STEM education in the 21 st century, he believes it is crucial for children to develop their historical, critical thinking, and writing skills in order to thrive as members of our global society. He is grateful that KLS has allowed him to join this all-important mission. When he’s not in the classroom, Derek loves movies, podcasts, cooking, playing the drums or guitar poorly, and reading just about anything he can get his eyes on.