We Believe
…that AI offers real promise to give every learner time, attention, and feedback at a scale much larger than is possible today.
About Us
Compass Collaborative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education brings decades of cross-disciplinary research on learning and development to shape AI that reaches learners.
The question is not whether AI is good or bad for learners. It’s when, for whom, in what context, and what it augments.
At every age, AI can give learners time and attention that is hard to provide one-to-one at scale. It can also shape human development, in ways we may or may not be conscious of. From personalized language learning apps to autocomplete nudging how we write, AI has been woven into daily life.
We translate scientific research on learning and development into guidance educators, caregivers, and learners can use and act on.
We conduct research alongside developmental scientists, learning researchers, educators, and the people building the technology, and we convene them, because understanding how AI shapes a developing mind takes all of them. It’s a tradition the Harvard Graduate School of Education has built since it founded its first Laboratory of Human Development in 1949.
Our purpose is to ensure AI is used in ways that support healthy development and learning, as science has long validated. And we protect the human experiences that encourage learners to be capable and curious. Learning happens through productive struggle, curiosity, human relationships, and cognitive effort. We created Compass Collaborative so that learners meet a complex, fast-changing world with capability, adaptability, and curiosity.
The Human Loop
The usual advice is to keep a human in the loop. But look at what that phrasing assumes. If the human is in the loop, the loop belongs to something else, and the person is a checkpoint inside it. We think it should be the other way around. Keep the loop human, then work out where AI fits inside it in a way that supports human flourishing.
Our Commitments
We Believe
…that people deserve AI that is developmental by design, built around how humans actually grow, at every stage.
We Believe
…the real question about AI is when, for whom, in what context, and what it augments.
We Believe
…that technology should strengthen the human relationships learning depends on.
We Believe
…that trust is earned with evidence, and decades of research on how people learn give us solid ground to build upon.
We Believe
…that a five-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, and a fifty-year-old are growing in different ways, and tools should treat them that way.
We Believe
…that educators and caregivers deserve the whole story: where AI helps, where it hurts, and where the science is still unsettled.
We Believe
…that guidance must keep up with the technology, and meet the needs educators and caregivers have today.
Leadership
Nonie K. Lesaux
Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development
Nonie K. Lesaux is the Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development.
A member of the faculty since 2003, she studies strategies and innovations that improve learning opportunities and literacy outcomes for children and youth, and teaches literacy development, early learning, and leading system-level change. She co-directs the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative, served as HGSE’s academic dean from 2017 to 2021, and previously chaired the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care. Her honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the William T. Grant Scholars Award, and she was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2019.
Jeff Curley
Co-Director of Compass Collaborative and Chief of Strategic Initiatives in the HGSE Dean’s Office
Jeff is the Co-Director of Compass Collaborative and Chief of Strategic Initiatives in the HGSE Dean’s Office.
Jeff focuses on making sure the science of learning and human development shapes how AI is built and brought into schools and systems. In the Dean’s Office, he leads HGSE’s strategy for developmentally informed AI and oversees HGSE Unbound, the school’s R&D engine for new models of professional learning.
He brings experience scaling educational technology and leading a school district. He co-founded iCivics with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and served as its COO and then CEO. He helped grow it into the nation’s largest digital civics curriculum publisher, which now reaches more than 95,000 teachers and nine million students every year. As Superintendent of Somerville Public Schools, he led a $100 million district serving more than 5,000 students, expanded afterschool access, and launched high-dose literacy tutoring.
He holds a B.A. from Davidson College and an Ed.L.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Tessa Forshaw
Co-Director of Compass Collaborative and Faculty Chair of the Workplace and Workforce Learning concentration
Tessa Forshaw is the Faculty Chair of Workplace and Workforce Learning and Co-Director of Compass Collaborative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
As a cognitive scientist, Forshaw explores how humans develop the cognitive and creative skills needed to learn, work, and create alongside AI as well as how emerging technologies shape learning and development. Before joining HGSE, Tessa was a Lecturer at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school) and spent more than a decade working across Accenture, the IDEO CoLab, and People Rocket, driving innovation in organizational learning and future workforce design. She is the author of Innovation-ish (Wiley, 2025) and a recipient of a Fast Company Design Award and two Core77 Design Awards. She holds an M.A. from Stanford University, a B.A. (Honors) from the Australian National University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.Faculty Advisors
Karen Brennan
Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Practice in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Karen is the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Practice in Learning Technologies, Faculty Chair of the Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology program, and an affiliate in Computer Science at Harvard SEAS.
She directs the Creative Computing Lab, studying K-12 computer science learning, computational thinking, and
generative AI in programming.
David Dockterman is a Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who works at the intersection of research and practice.
In 1982, while earning his doctorate at HGSE, he helped found Tom Snyder Productions, an early pioneer in educational technology. Over more than 35 years across academia and educational publishing he has designed dozens of award-winning programs and advised on products including MATH 180 and READ 180 Universal. His Harvard course, Innovation by Design, fosters an iterative, evidence-driven approach to educational innovation. Drawing on behavioral psychology and cognitive science, he emphasizes productive struggle and a learning mindset among students, teachers, and leaders. He holds an Ed.D. from Harvard.
Stephanie M. Jones
Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Stephanie M. Jones is the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she directs the EASEL Lab and co-directs the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative with Nonie Lesaux.
In January 2026 she was appointed Faculty Director of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. A developmental psychologist trained in child development, prevention science, and social policy, she studies the learning settings, family systems, and policies that shape child wellbeing from infancy through early adolescence, with experimental work on social-emotional competencies and the programs and pedagogy that foster them. She has led evaluations of programs including SECURe, SEL Kernels, and Head Start CARES, and is a recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in Education. She holds a B.A. from Barnard College and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Paul LeBlanc
Visiting Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Paul is Visiting Professor of Education at HGSE and special advisor to the dean, completing a book on AI and education (Wiley, 2026).
He was president of Southern New Hampshire University until June 2024, and is a former senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education on competency-based education and new accreditation pathways.Meredith L. Rowe
Saul Zaentz Professor of Early Learning and Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Meredith is the Saul Zaentz Professor of Early Learning and Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
She leads a research program on the role of parents and family factors in children’s early language and literacy development, identifying features of children’s early communicative environments that contribute to language and cognitive growth and applying that knowledge to caregiver interventions. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from HGSE, completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Chicago, and was on the faculty at the University of Maryland before joining HGSE in 2014. Her work has been funded by NIH (NICHD), the National Science Foundation, and other foundations.
Richard Weissbourd
Senior Lecturer on Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Rick is a Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
His work focuses on moral development, hope, vulnerability and resilience in childhood, parenting, and effective schools and services for children. He directs the Making Caring Common Project, a national effort to make moral and social development priorities in child-raising, and leads Turning the Tide, an initiative to reform college admissions that has engaged over 300 admissions offices. A founder of the literacy initiatives ReadBoston and WriteBoston, he has advised at city, state, and federal levels on family policy and school reform. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child and The Parents We Mean to Be, and holds an Ed.D. from Harvard.
Ying Xu is an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on designing AI technologies that promote language and literacy development, STEM learning, and wellbeing for children and families.
Ying’s current projects investigate the design and effectiveness of conversational AI technologies to serve as language partners and learning companions for children, and how AI affects children’s social interactions and developmental processes. Additionally, she explores human-AI collaborative approaches to empower education stakeholders to engage in the development of AI technologies for their specific needs and contexts. Ying collaborates closely with children, families, educators, and community organizations to create media that is informed by and reflective of their values, practices, and linguistic and cultural assets. She partners with major organizations such as PBS KIDS, GBH Education, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her work has been published in leading academic journals across psychology, education, and human-computer interaction, including Child Development Perspectives, Journal of Educational Psychology, Child Development, Computers & Education, and the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. She has received numerous best paper awards and is acknowledged as an Early Career Interdisciplinary Scholar by the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD). Ying completed her Ph.D. training in language, literacy, and technology at the University of California, Irvine, and was an assistant professor of learning sciences and technology at the University of Michigan from 2022 until she moved to Harvard in 2024.Team
Amanda Taylor
Director of Programs, Compass Collaborative, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Amanda is Director of Programs with Compass Collaborative.
Amanda believes research matters most when it changes what people actually do. As a member of Compass Collaborative’s core team, she leads the design, launch and operations of its learning programs, working with faculty to put the science of human development into the hands of the people building and using AI in education.
She brings more than twenty years at HGSE to that work, beginning in the Mind, Brain, and Education Program. She was on the founding team of the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) Program, a first-of-its-kind degree preparing leaders for the public and nonprofit sectors, and later built its alumni network. As Senior Associate Director of Reach Every Reader, she led strategy and operations for a multi-institutional initiative tackling the early literacy crisis. She also helps lead HGSE Unbound, which brings HGSE’s research to professionals through certificates on timely topics.
Amanda holds an A.L.M. in Management from Harvard Extension School, an M.M. in Flute Performance from Indiana University, and a B.A. in English and a B.Mus. in Music Performance from Boston University.
Beth is a Research Associate with Compass Collaborative.
A leadership and culture strategist and organizational change consultant, her HGSE studies focus on adult development, group dynamics, organizational change, and learning as a practice of collective healing. Holds Hogan Assessment and Interaction Management certifications; studied social work at UT Austin.Salomey is a Program Manager with Compass Collaborative and a 2025–26 Zaentz Early Education Fellow.
She is a Harvard alumna working at the intersection of education, AI, research, and workforce development. Her experience spans higher education, international development, academic research, global partnerships, and EdTech entrepreneurship. She is the Founder of MEYFUND, which expands early learning opportunities for underserved children in Ghana, and was a project contributor to UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). She has also held global roles at Unilever and Bosch, bringing a cross-sector perspective to building solutions that advance learning, opportunity, and workforce readiness.
Emily Meland
Postdoctoral Researcher with Compass Collaborative and Adjunct Lecturer at HGSE
Emily is a Postdoctoral Researcher with Compass Collaborative and Adjunct Lecturer at HGSE.
Her research bridges social-emotional learning with culturally sustaining, asset-based pedagogies, with a focus on adult capacity-building and developmental interactions between educators and students. She is Co-Director of Simple Interactions and earned her Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching from HGSE, where she also completed her Ed.M. in 2016.
Mary Kate is Director of Development at HGSE.
She has held development roles across Harvard, including Senior Development Officer at Harvard Business School and several positions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. B.A. from Saint Michael’s College; Ed.M. in higher education administration from HGSE.Emily Wiklund Hayhurst
Assistant Director of Learning Design and Communications for the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at HGSE
Emily is Assistant Director of Learning Design and Communications for the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at HGSE.
She develops professional learning programs, multimedia resources, and action-oriented tools for the early education field, and writes publicly on early childhood policy and public investment.Max Lu
Research Assistant, Compass Collaborative and Doctoral Candidate, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Max is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he studies how generative AI supports critical thinking, perspective-taking, and self-regulated learning.
He leads the Human Learning, Machine Intelligence Speaker Series and served as HGSE’s inaugural AI Teaching Fellow. He previously worked on news innovation at Bloomberg Media and the Los Angeles Times.Natasha is a communications and content strategist.
She specializes in translating complex research and ideas into clear, compelling language for non-specialist audiences. She led editorial development on the AI × Human Development Matrix, shaping how the team’s findings reach educators in the field. She works independently with mission-driven organizations across education, climate, and social innovation, and has previously worked with the Stanford d.school and the Centre for Economic Transformation at the London School of Economics.Richard is an AI Innovation Advisor.
He is the co-author of Innovation-ish (Wiley, 2025), founder and CEO of People Rocket, and an AI and Innovation Advisor to Compass’s AI Guidance by Age project. Innovation-ish is an evidence-based approach to innovation grounded in cognitive science. Trained in computer and electrical engineering at Purdue University, Rich researched artificial intelligence and visual imaging in the late 1980s and early 1990s, long before AI went mainstream. Today he helps organizations build the human judgment and innovation capability needed to use AI well. Without that judgment, AI can scale bad ideas as easily as good ones. He teaches design and innovation at Harvard, Stanford, Aalto University and London Business School, and has advised Google, Microsoft, Airbnb and the United Nations on strategic innovation and responsible AI.Isaura Gallegos is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Eric Mazur’s lab at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
She earned her PhD at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied collaborative learning, motivation, and psychological safety in undergraduate physics. She is a cofounder of ASPEN, a teacher-led organization that helps high school physics teachers build communities of practice to bring emerging topics into their classrooms. Her work centers on how people learn together.Drew is currently pursuing his Ed.L.D. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Drew Barker is a scientist, inventor, and former U.S. Navy officer with a longstanding interest in the intersection of science, technology, and education. His career has spanned physics, aerospace engineering, aviation, and national security, where he served as a pilot and lead flight instructor, managed aircraft carrier flight operations, led teams developing space systems, and modernized data analytics for Naval Aviation.
Driven by a belief that education is one of the most important problems to solve, Drew transitioned from military service to focus on educational innovation. He is currently in his third year of the Ed.L.D. program at HGSE, where he is exploring how cognitive science can inform the design of more effective educational systems.Maheen is an award-winning filmmaker and a current graduate student at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, pursuing an EdM in Learning Design and Technology.
Maheen brings a strong technical foundation, with degrees in Computer Science and Data Science from New York University. His experience spans data engineering, full-stack development, and research in NLP and LLMs. At NYU, he served as Head Developer of the Google Developer Group and won hackathons hosted by NVIDIA, Vercel, Columbia, and Brown. His work is driven by an interest in the intersection of learning design, technology, and equity.
Gabrielle is a current LL.M. candidate at Harvard Law School.
Her previous experience spans corporate law at Allens in Australia and international law and diplomacy at the United Nations. Gabrielle has a strong background in student leadership and community engagement, having served as the elected Undergraduate Representative on the University of Sydney Senate, representing over 60,000 students, and as a member of the Students’ Representative Council. She graduated from the University of Sydney with degrees in Law (First Class Honours) and Economics. She has published research on children’s legal representation in adoption proceedings in New South Wales.Brendan is a Research Assistant with Compass Collaborative.
Brendan is a current Ed.M. student in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He brings a background in higher education consulting, where he focused on institutional strategy, operations, and special projects. At HGSE, he organizes the Human Learning, Machine Intelligence Speaker Series.Amber is a Graduate Research Assistant with Compass Collaborative
She is a current Ed.M. student in Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, concentrating in Global, International, and Comparative Education. As a research assistant, she helps code and test the Navigator at Compass and studies children’s curiosity with chatbots at the Child-Centered AI Lab.Former Affiliates
Caitlin Dermody
Ph.D. Candidate, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Caitlin was a Doctoral Researcher with Compass Collaborative and is a doctoral student at HGSE, where she is a PIER Fellow mentored by Nonie Lesaux.
She investigates the pedagogical practices and policy conditions that best support young children’s development. Previously Policy and Research Specialist at CASEL. B.A. Yale; M.Sc. Oxford.Meredith Lamont
Executive Communication Lead, Dean’s Office, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Meredith has over a decade of experience in communications and leadership roles, and currently serves as Executive Communication Lead at Harvard Graduate School of Education, contributing to strategic messaging and impactful storytelling.
Previous roles at the University of Virginia, including Director of Communications and Senior Advisor to the President, emphasized proposal writing, project management, and speechwriting. Known for fostering collaboration and crafting clear, compelling narratives that align with institutional goals, while driving engagement across diverse audiences. Dedicated to advancing organizational missions through thoughtful communication strategies that inspire and empower teams to achieve shared goals. She holds an Ed.M. from HGSE and has spent much of her career in senior administrative and chief-of-staff roles at the school.Mikayla was formerly a Doctoral Researcher with Compass Collaborative.
A Ph.D. student in human development at HGSE, she studies adolescent development, the transition into adulthood, and adolescent purpose in social and cultural context. In the SEED Lab she worked with the CREDI and GSED teams on early childhood measurement.Nigel was formerly a Doctoral Researcher with Compass Collaborative.
A Ph.D. student in Education with a concentration in Human Development, his research examines how parental expectations, gendered norms, and cultural values shape Sri Lankan adolescents’ educational and career decisions, and the effects on purpose, belonging, and wellbeing. B.Sc. University of London; Ed.M. Harvard.Get Involved
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