BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Yamaris Brodsky is a seasoned leader with extensive experience at the intersection of talent, operations, and strategy. Throughout her diverse career, she has driven organizational success by maximizing talent and resources, collaborating with key stakeholders, and optimizing operational effectiveness to deliver organizational outcomes.
Yamaris’s dedication to fostering equity, access, and opportunities for students began in 1998 when she became the first-ever diversity recruiter at Arthur Andersen, LLP. Her commitment to building diverse workforces continued at prestigious firms like Goldman Sachs & Co. and Ernst & Young, LLP. As the former Chief Human Resources Officer at YSC Consulting, she led a global human resources team as was responsible for centralizing talent management functions across 11 countries. Her work included overseeing talent acquisition, senior leadership succession planning, retention, professional development, total rewards, and workplace safety, employee resource groups, and well-being initiatives.

Prior to YSC Consulting, Yamaris served as the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Human Resources at Whittle School and Studios, which operated flagship campuses in Shenzhen, China, and Washington, D.C. There, she played a key role in shaping the organizational structures and processes that nurtured a unified and supportive culture across global campuses, ensuring all team members felt valued, supported, and inspired.

Yamaris’s passion for education and organizational development extends to her tenure at the New York City Department of Education, where she spent 16 years in various leadership roles. She served as Chief of Staff and Strategy for Information & Instructional Technology, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for the Office of English Language Learners, and Executive Director of System & Process Improvement, among other roles. Notable accomplishments include launching the first-ever teacher professional development program focused on supporting English learners, securing funding for a state-of-the-art data center to enhance school technology, and developing leadership programs to advance women and colleagues from diverse backgrounds.

In addition to her work in the public and private sectors, Yamaris pursued her passion for cooking, graduating from the Institute of Culinary Arts in 2007. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is the proud wife and the mother of two bi-cultural, bi-racial children, who keep her culinary skills sharp and inspire her every day.

Joy Delizo-Osborne started teaching as a Breakthrough Collaborative intern at the ripe old age of 18, and has not stopped since. Even now, after being out of school buildings for a number of years, she spends her spare time tutoring middle and high school students in writing. She believes that anything she can do to make this education system one that sees and values each and every student is worthwhile. The work she does at SAP feels like it is chipping away at that challenge each and every day.
Joy has a B.A. in English and Women’s Studies from Pomona College, as well as a Master’s in Education from Claremont Graduate University. She has spent over a decade in school buildings in the Bronx, Harlem, and the Bay Area in various roles, including teacher, instructional coach and principal. Joy then worked at Education Resource Strategies as a School Design Lead before joining SAP in 2019.

Michael J. Kieffer (He/Him) studies the language and literacy development of students from linguistically diverse backgrounds. A former middle school teacher, he aims to conduct research that can inform instruction and policy to improve the reading outcomes of students in urban schools, especially multilingual learners. He has published over 60 articles which collectively have been cited over 10,000 times. These include longitudinal studies of the reading and language development of English learners, experimental evaluations of vocabulary instruction, and secondary analyses of large longitudinal datasets. Committed to interdisciplinarity, he collaborates widely with colleagues in other areas, including developmental psychology, applied statistics, special education, and educational policy. His research has received funding and awards from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Spencer Foundation, American Educational Research Association, and the International Reading Association
With a $1.4 million grant from the IES, he recently completed a mixed-methods, experimental study on whether and how heterogeneous grouping affects English learners’ language, reading, and social network development. He is also an investigator on the $10-million IES-funded Center for the Success of English Learners, where he leads a strand of research on policies and system-level practices that constrain or enhance secondary English learners’ access to the general curriculum. At NYU, he co-directs the IES-funded Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Training program and directs the English Education program.

Nonie K. Lesaux, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Education and Human Development, is the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Lesaux assumed the role of dean in March 2025 after acting as interim dean since July 1, 2024. She served as academic dean at HGSE from 2017 to 2021. She was previously named the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society before her appointment to the Larsen chair in 2021.
A member of the HGSE faculty since 2003, Lesaux’s research focuses on strategies and innovations to improve learning opportunities and literacy outcomes for children and youth. Her teaching focuses on literacy development and reform, early learning, and leading system-level change. Lesaux works largely through partnerships with school districts, states, and communities. In school districts, Lesaux investigates language, reading, and social-emotional development; classroom quality and academic growth; and strategies to accelerate language and reading comprehension. In states and communities, she brings tools and concepts from improvement science to strengthen literacy plans and policy initiatives, grade-level reading campaigns, and birth-to-eight early learning initiatives. Her research-practice partnerships with large urban school districts, to improve literacy rates, include seven years with San Diego Unified and ten years with the New York City Department of Education.
With Stephanie Jones, Lesaux leads the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at HGSE, which addresses the pervasive global challenge of simultaneously scaling and improving the quality of early education. Anchored by a first-of-its-kind large-scale study to inform a new era of science and policymaking in early education, and a new model of capacity-building for leaders, the Initiative’s network and partnerships represent all 50 U.S. states and 92 countries.
Lesaux’s research appears in numerous scholarly publications, and its practical applications are featured in several books for school leaders and educators. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Reading Research (2022) and wrote a widely circulated state literacy report, Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success, that inspired a third-grade reading proficiency bill passed in Massachusetts.
Lesaux has earned the William T. Grant Scholars Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the U.S. government to young professionals beginning their independent research careers. She served on the U.S. Department of Education’s Reading First Advisory Committee and the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council’s Committee on the Science of Children Birth to Age 8. From 2015 to 2022, Lesaux chaired the Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care, which oversees the state agency that licenses and supports childcare and community-based public programs for young children. Lesaux is a member of the National Academy of Education and the board of the Spencer Foundation. She is expert consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Educational Opportunities Section.