PRESENTER BIOGRAPHIES
Jana Burk
Executive Director, Leader Effectiveness
Tulsa Public Schools
Jana Burk is the Executive Director of Teacher and Leader Effectiveness
at Tulsa Public Schools. She is a former middle school teacher, school
law attorney and education planner having worked in law firms with
large education law practices in both Austin and Tulsa. She joined Tulsa
Public Schools in early 2011 and has been instrumental in the design
and development of the District’s teacher evaluation framework, which
is now used in 500 Oklahoma school districts. Jana led much of the
District’s reform work undertaken in partnership with the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, especially with regard to developing
principals’ ability to accurately assess teacher performance. She
graduated from the University of Texas School of Law and received her
undergraduate degree from Texas as well in its Plan I Honors Program.
Jennifer Carinci
Director of Research, Innovation, and Data Strategy
Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP)
Jennifer Carinci is Director of Research, Innovation, and Data Strategy, a
new role at the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation
(CAEP) that will map out and implement an ambitious agenda to advance
research and innovation in educator preparation. Jennifer joined CAEP as
an Institute of Education Sciences Pre-Doctoral Training Fellow in Johns
Hopkins Department of Teacher Development and Leadership with a
background as a middle and high school art teacher in Baltimore City.
Through the Graduate Education Internship at Maryland Institute College
of Art (MICA) and Young Audiences of Maryland’s Teaching Artist
Institute, Jennifer has mentored aspiring Baltimore City teachers. Her
higher education teaching experience includes evaluation courses at Johns
Hopkins and Loyola. Jennifer has evaluated students, interns, programs,
and prospective and current teachers through various research studies at
Johns Hopkins, selecting for the Baltimore City Teaching Residency,
supervising for UMBC, and as an evaluator for the National Summer Learning Association and the
Center for Research and Reform in Education. Past leadership includes serving as a member of the
AERA Council, teacher consultant for The Maryland Writing Project, and advisory member for the
Walters Art Museum Education Department. Past-Chair of AERA’s Graduate Student Council,
Program Chair of the Academic Audit Research in Teacher Education Special Interest Group, and
member of MICA’s Alumni Council are among current service leadership. Distinctions earned
include being named New Middle School Art Teacher of the Year in 2007 by the Maryland Art
Education Association and selected as a Fulbright Teacher Scholar in Greece.
Michael Dunlea
Teacher
Ocean Acres Elementary School
Michael Dunlea is in his 12th year as a second grade teacher and
lives with his wife and 3 children in Manahawkin, New Jersey. He
was the 2011 Ocean County NJ State Teacher of the Year and a
finalist for NJ State Teacher of the Year. Michael is an America
Achieves Teacher Fellow, a 2014 Hope Street Group National
Teacher Fellow and he serves as an advisor to the NJ State
Department of Education on the Teacher Advisory Panel and the
State Program Authorization Council. He co-founded a non-profit
organization called Stafford Teachers And Residents Together
(START), to clean up his town after Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. He
was named the Humanitarian of the Year for 2013 by the Martin
Truex Jr. Foundation for his work with START. Michael is an
advanced candidate for National Board Professional Teacher Standards certification. You can
contact him at mdunlea@staffordschools.org or his twitter address @MichaelJDunlea .
Penny M. Murray-Au
HR Operations
Hamilton County Department of Education
Penny M. Murray-Au, MBA, PHR, SHRM-CP is proud to hold the
position of HR Operations for the Hamilton County Department of
Education (HCDE). She has over sixteen years of human resource
and training experience, four of which are with HCDE and the
remainder with a large local utility and various Fortune 100 and
Fortune 500 companies. Penny brings a diverse background of
experience to HCDE, but her passion for the work at HCDE shows
that she has fallen in love with education. In addition to monitoring
overall HR and legal compliance, recruitment strategies, and leave
and accommodation management for the District, she is also
responsible for assisting with HCDE’s own Project COACH Evaluation
Model for teachers and administrators, administration of the Strategic Compensation Model for
high need and hard to staff schools, various data management and analysis, and other innovative
district-wide projects and initiatives.
Penny has a Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management from Tennessee Technological
University, a Certificate in Training and Development from the University of Georgia, and a Master
of Business Administration from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She also holds the
Professional in Human Resources Certification and the Society for Human Resource Management
Certified Professional designations.
Rob Ramsdell
CEO and Co-founder
Tripod Education Partners
Rob Ramsdell began his career as a high school social studies teacher.
He then founded FreshPond Education in 1996, where he designed and
implemented professional development programs for schools and
districts. From 2002 to 2005, Ramsdell served as senior director of PBS
TeacherLine, an online professional development initiative funded by
the U.S. Department of Education. After returning to FreshPond
Education in 2005, Rob joined Cambridge Education, where he served
as vice president from 2007 to 2014. During his tenure at Cambridge
Education, he continued a long-standing partnership on the Tripod
Project with Ron Ferguson of Harvard University. Rob and Ron were the
professional leads for the student survey portion of the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, which incorporated Tripod
student surveys. Together they co-founded Tripod Education Partners in 2014 to expand Tripod’s
research agenda and to increase access to Tripod surveys and associated support for professional
learning. Rob holds a B.A. from Brown University, an M.A. in educational administration from
Teachers College, Columbia University, and a M.Ed. in educational technology from the Harvard
Graduate School of Education
John Stewart
Program Manager
Project COACH
John Stewart hails from Chattanooga, TN. He has been an educator for 32
years. After spending 20 years as a science teacher, he moved into
administration as an assistant principal at an urban middle school where
he served four years. During the next five years, he served as principal of
Brown Middle School, a very diverse member of the Hamilton County
School System. Since retiring in June of 2010, he has served as Program
Manager of Project COACH, a state approved evaluation model developed
for use in Hamilton County, TN.