Our Team

Elena is an educator and researcher who is fascinated by how children learn and how adults learn to care for children. Elena graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in anthropology and holds a master’s in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She led education, public health, and child protection programs with domestic and international non-profits and United Nations agencies for over 20 years. She has a unique viewpoint on equity shaped by her time living, working, and learning from colleagues in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Elena brings expertise in adolescent development, social and emotional learning, strategic planning, and participatory evaluation and research. Elena moved with her family to Birmingham from the Los Angeles area in 2023. If she’s not working in her garden, she can often be found staring at her garden, planning what to plant next.