Collaborative Welcomes New Fellows

Melissa Collins

​Charles Hayes

Anne Ludes

​Carla Neely

The Innovation Collaborative is proud to announce new Innovation Fellows who have been invited by the Board of Directors to join the Collaborative’s work in K-12.

Innovation Fellows are top K-12 administrators and arts, STEM, and classroom teachers from across the US who are influential STEAM advocates. They are the planning team who help lead the Collaborative’s K-12 Effective Practices project that focuses on classroom practices and teacher professional development.

The Collaborative’s initial Fellows were identified in the first round of national K-12 STEAM research. Additional fellows are invited to join this group, based on their impressive abilities to move the K-12 STEAM field forward through teaching and administration.

These new Fellows are impressive in their own right.

• Melissa Collins has been an active member of the Collaborative’s Advisory Council since 2020. She teaches second grade at John P. Freeman Optional School, an underserved school in Memphis, TN. There, she emphasizes curiosity in science and is a teacher leadership expert. Melissa has won numerous awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching, the National Science Teaching Association's (NSTA) Sylvia Shugrue Award for elementary teachers, and in 2020 was named to the National Teacher Hall of Fame.
• Charles Hayes has been the fifth grade science lead at a Title 1 School in Memphis TN for nine years. This year he is serving as instruction advisor for middle school science in the Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ Department of Curriculum and Instruction. He has won a number of awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Math Teaching and the National Science Teaching Association’s (NSTA) Shell Science Teacher Award. Charles embraces STEAM and the Collaborative’s work.
• Anne Ludes is a spring, 2021, graduate of the Collaborative's STEAM Professional Development (PD) and became a leader in planning our subsequent STEAM PDs. She was Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education at Framingham Public Schools, MA, and is now Director of the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA. She is passionate about the Collaborative's approach to STEAM. She said, "This work has been absolutely game-changing for me... As an administrator, this project has been instrumental in helping me develop the language and depth of understanding necessary to support teachers with curriculum development, lesson planning, and instructional practices.”
• Carla Neely has been teaching fifth and sixth grade science at an African American all-girls school, Warner Girls Leadership Academy, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was one of 15 teachers across the US selected as 2022-23 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellows. As an Einstein Fellow, she is working as a STEM Legislative Fellow in a Nevada Senator's office in DC, developing ways to make STEM more equitable for girls of color, which is her specialty.  Before her selection as an Einstein Fellow, she taught STEAM in her science classroom and developed a STEAM lab. She also conducted research regarding equity for girls in STEM.

Meet all eleven fellows on our website.