Celine Coggins is the founder and CEO of Teach Plus. Coggins is a former teacher and current Mind Trust Education Entrepreneur Fellow. She has a background that includes research, policy and K-12 teaching. She originally launched Teach Plus in 2007 as a subsidiary of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy in Cambridge, MA and incorporated it as an independent 501c3 in 2009. She has been a labor-management consultant in Providence, RI as well as Worcester and Springfield, MA and was formerly special assistant to the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education on teacher quality. She is the author of more than two dozen reports and journal articles and the editor of two books. She earned her Ph.D. in Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University.

Watch Celine on "The Mind Trust Fellows with Jane Pauley."

Monique has been President of Teach Plus since its incorporation in 2009.  She brings experience as a social entrepreneur, management and human capital consultant and reform-oriented district administrator to the Teach Plus team.  She started her career in the business sector (Quaker Oat Co.) in marketing and brand management before moving to the education sector as a consultant for McKenzie Group, opening model middle schools in Washington, DC.  After spending a year as the assistant principal of one of those schools, Monique then worked as Special Assistant to the Superintendent of the Philadelphia Public School District, which informed her understanding of the need for quality training of urban school teachers and leaders.  This focus on human capital development lead her to co-found, and co-lead as President and Chief Curriculum Officer, New Leaders for New Schools. She later worked as a consultant for Building Excellent Schools, supporting the leadership capacity of some of Boston’s strongest charter schools. Monique earned her Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College, her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and her Master’s in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is ABD for her doctorate in Education Administration and Social Policy.

Read her testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee on the T3 Initiative.

Mike Stryer is joining Teach Plus following work as Executive Director at Teachers for a New Unionism.  His work focused heavily on developing the participation of solutions-oriented teachers in teacher union governance and policy-making. He partnered closely with Teach Plus both in L.A. and Boston on this work.

Prior to his new unionism work, Mike Stryer taught Social Studies at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles for eight years- focusing of expanding access to AP-level courses, including AP World History.  At Fairfax, he served as the school's Lead Teacher and as the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) chapter chair (building rep).  He co-founded NewTLA, a political reform caucus, a caucus comprised primarily of "new majority" teachers within UTLA’s governing body.

Before teaching, Mike worked in international business, heading international divisions of several U.S. consumer products companies, including Applause and Variflex. He has a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in Political Science, a master's degree in International Relations from Yale University and a master's degree in Education from Pepperdine University.

Alice joined Teach Plus in October of 2011, bringing more than 20 years of policy and advocacy experience. Alice’s policy work includes six years as Congressman George Miller’s chief education advisor where she helped develop and secure passage of Race to the Top, the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), and the RENEWAAL Act to assist Gulf Coast schools after Hurricane Katrina. She also led efforts to enact the Teacher Excellence for All Children (TEACH) Act and revisions to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Alice advised Senator Paul Simon on K-12 education and served on the education committee that advised then-Senator Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. She developed policy recommendations that were adopted by the New Zealand government through a fellowship awarded by Fulbright New Zealand.

Alice’s advocacy work includes leading the Children’s Defense Fund’s national grassroots advocacy program through which parents, grandparents, faith leaders and other community leaders successfully pushed for policy changes benefitting low-income children and families, and working at the National Institute for Literacy to build a national network of literacy teachers who successfully advocated for policy changes on behalf of their students. Alice’s policy work is grounded in her experience teaching GED classes to low-income and homeless adults and refugees. Alice has served on the boards of several literacy organizations and is currently on the board of the Success for All Foundation and MarylandCAN.

Heather became the Director of Development at Teach Plus in 2012, bringing with her a breadth of experience in a variety of Development functions, especially grants and foundations. Before joining Teach Plus, Heather spent several years as the National Grants Director at Stand for Children. There she expanded foundation fundraising to keep pace with the organization’s growth plans as it doubled in size in the space of a few years. Prior to that, Heather built her development experience as at the Development Projects Manager at Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts. She began her non-profit career with the Global Habitat Project (which became a part of the Urban Ecology Institute); there she ran the Greentimes science writing program and gained her first insights into the challenges that urban students and teachers face.

Heather spent a year abroad in high school with the American Field Service exchange program in Costa Rica, which was her first experience in a large urban school after having grown up in rural northern Michigan. She also has worked abroad in London, England, and was privileged to present at the Kuwait Conference for Women in STEM in 2006. Heather earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Michigan, and she has completed half of a MBA specializing in Non-Profit Management at Boston University.

Mark Teoh is a former high school history teacher, having taught for six years in both Texas and Pennsylvania. While in Texas, he was a Master Teacher in the Summer Bridge Houston program. He is a contributing author to two books on using data to improve instruction, "Data Wise" and "Data Wise In Action." Mark has worked in the Human Resources and Academic departments of the Boston Public Schools and, most recently, served as Executive Director of Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Development in the Seattle Public Schools.

Mark earned a B.A. in History from Rice University, a M.S.Ed. in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Ed.M. and Ed.D. in Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice from Harvard University. Mark's research has been focused on the retention of novice teachers in school districts, looking at how pre-service training, career stage, and geography impact their career decisions.

Nathan is currently the Director of Finance and Operations at Teach Plus. Prior to working at Teach Plus, Nathan was an economic consultant at Analysis Group in Boston. Before economic consulting, Nathan consulted on corporate development strategies for Unis-Cité, a national service organization in Paris, France. While earning his MBA at Boston College, Nathan conducted research on corporate volunteering and philanthropy at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship.

Prior to receiving his M.B.A., Nathan managed City Year’s national corporate partnerships with Timberland, Bank of America, and CSX. Nathan developed and grew Care Force, a revenue-generating community service model at City Year, to earning over $1 million annually. He served as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Boston developing a Boston-based revenue-generating program at City Year.

Nathan has also spent time as a teacher in an urban classroom and working for after school organizations such as Citizen Schools and BELL. Nathan received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and his M.B.A. from Boston College. He serves as an officer on the board of two Boston-area nonprofit organizations. Nathan is currently an adjunct professor teaching nonprofit management at the Carroll Graduate School of Management at Boston College.

Before joining Teach Plus, Kate spent three years in the UK, where she worked with fifth graders with special educational needs in a London primary school. Previously, Kate was a Reading Specialist for the Harlem Children’s Zone. At HCZ, Kate co-founded and co-directed a performing arts program for middle school students that staged Shakespeare productions at Harlem’s National Black Theatre. Kate is also a writer whose work has appeared such publications as the Huffington Post, Slate, and Narrative Magazine, and onstage Off-Broadway. She holds a BA in American Studies from Yale and a master’s in Social Anthropology from Oxford, where she was a recipient of the Weidenfeld Scholarship. Born and raised in Cambridge, MA, Kate is also a proud graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.

Before coming to Teach Plus, Ellie worked in Washington, DC for Charter Board Partners, a non-profit that works to strengthen the boards of charter schools. She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Women’s Studies from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she graduated magna cum laude with honors.