Who

Archana Iyer leads a cross-network initiative to "Redefine Student Success" at the Global Learning Lab at Teach For All. She responsible for helping network partners choose, define, measure and pursue both academic and non-academic outcomes required for students to live into partners' visions for their futures. Prior to this, Archana led the development of Firki, a world-class open source online training portal, and the first bilingual teacher training portal for public school teachers in India. From 2011 to 2013, Archana taught a fifth grade class in Mumbai through Teach for India, where she was recognized with the Transformational Impact Journey Award for the most outstanding teacher across the organization. Before her foray into the education space, Archana worked in the space of marketing and brand management in multinational corporations and leading e-commerce platforms in India.

Laurelin Whitfield studies the actions and mindsets of transformational teachers as part of the Global Learning Lab. She has spent nearly two decades working in education across the United States and abroad. She began her teaching career in Kenya, taught high school mathematics and French in urban districts in the U.S. for ten years, and spent a year as an adjunct professor with a teacher training college in France. Laurelin has spent the past seven years coaching educational leaders, consulting with schools and nonprofit organizations, and designing and delivering professional development for adult learners. Laurelin lives with her husband and two children in Oregon, where she enjoys being outdoors, practicing yoga and meditation, reading, and indulging her inner artist.

Rachel is the Director of Learner Variability on the Transformational Learning and Leadership team at Teach For All.  Prior to joining staff at Teach For All, Rachel launched and led the Diverse Learner Initiative at Teach For America that focused on ensuring that ALL (special and general educators) TFA teachers had the mindset, skills and knowledge to “teach to the edges” to reach all learners.  Rachel’s career in education began in Washington, DC where she taught for 6 years and earned her M.Ed in Special Education.  With specific experience in Universal Design for Learning, Culturally Responsive Practices and working with English Language Learners, Rachel facilitated the Diverse Learner graduate course for The Center for Inspired Teaching, and has worked with schools and education organizations from multiple contexts to support their work in these domains.   She currently lives in Seattle, Washington – USA and enjoys practicing yoga and meditation, exploring with 1.5 year old nephew, Keaton, rock climbing and reading as much as possible in her free time!

Sanaya Bharucha drives the Path to Impact for the Global Learning Lab at Teach For All. Before joining Teach For All, she was part of the first cohort of Teach For India Fellows where she taught students in an under-served community in Pune. She then served as a Program Manager at Teach For India where she mentored and coached new teachers. Sanaya then went on to establish and drive the Maya Movement over 4 years where she was focused on deepening organizational understanding of an excellent education, creating bright spots that demonstrated what our children were capable of across all 7 Teach For India cities, and scaling these insights to impact all 900 classrooms and 42,000 children within Teach For India. Sanaya is a certified SCUBA Diver, enjoys playing various sports, is an avid environmentalist and animal lover. She currently lives in Mumbai.

Sarah King leads classroom learning loops at Teach For All’s Global Learning Lab. She attended Carleton College as a Posse Leadership & Diversity Scholar and was a fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American History at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, she returned to her hometown of Chicago to work with students and their families at an innovative college access start-up called the Schuler Scholar Program. Her college access experiences (her own and those with her students) drive her conviction about realizing students’ leadership inside and outside of the classroom. Sarah went on to work at Teach For America for five years, supporting the launch of the Philanthropic Leadership Circle, a group of the organization's most committed supporters learning about key issues such as racial justice, community partnership, and more. Then, she worked on the program insights teams at TFA and Teach For All. In 2015, she moved full time to Teach For All to continue capturing and disseminating insights from excellent classrooms across the global network. Sarah is a fellow at the New Leaders Council, a national organization fostering, connecting, and training the country’s next generation of progressive civic leaders. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Steven Farr began leading training and support efforts at Teach For America fifteen years ago and is today working with Teach For All as well, looking across geographical and cultural differences to study and share innovations in transformational learning and leadership.  He is the author of Teaching As Leadership: The Highly Effective Teacher’s Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap and his work has been featured in the Atlantic Monthly, on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and on ABC World News Tonight as part of the Person of the Week segment.  His “teaching as leadership” framework [www.teachingasleadership.org] is a foundational leadership development model for many Teach For All partners.  

A graduate of the University of Texas’s Plan II Honors program and Yale Law School, Steven taught high school English and English as a second language as a part of the 1993 Teach For America corps in the Rio Grande Valley.  After law school, Steven clerked for the Honorable William Wayne Justice in federal district court in Texas before teaching civil rights and disability rights at the Georgetown University Law Center.  Steven is the father of three children and the husband of the head of the juvenile public defender unit in Washington, DC.

After working as a research scientist in drug discovery for Pfizer, Tim joined the 2005 cohort of Teach First in the United Kingdom as a science teacher, where he taught for four years. He then led Teach First’s support of alumni teachers. For the last several years at Teach For All, Tim has worked with partner organizations on fundamental questions of transformational learning and leadership, from teacher mindsets and actions to student outcomes to evolving local visions of student success. Soon to be an officially certified professional coach himself, Tim will lead the Transformational Learning & Leadership Fellowship, dedicating half of his time to it.