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Alisha Collins (Panjwani)

Interim Senior Director of STEAM & Innovation

As our Interim Senior Director of STEAM & Innovation, Alisha will play an integral role in disrupting traditional curriculum and assessment practices in order to expand access to diverse learners, and working on new innovative ways to use wearables and data to track health and wellness data, reflect, and iterate further. Alisha is a designer, researcher, author, and educator with a strong background in maker education and experiential learning.

She’s spent over 15 years teaching in diverse schools across India, the U.S., Canada, and Brazil, creating curricula and leading professional development workshops. Alisha has led numerous maker-based learning initiatives, focusing on integrating craft, wellness, play, identity, storytelling, and technology into creative learning experiences.

Alisha brings a deep passion for using smart and adaptive materials to create rich, meaningful learning opportunities, especially for underrepresented communities and diverse learners. Alisha’s work has been groundbreaking, and she’s a published author of two books, including Biomaking: A Visual Guide to Explore Making with Biology. Currently, she’s also a co-principal investigator for the Morphing Matter for All project, exploring new ways to bring interdisciplinary STEM learning to everyone, and providing unique, engaging access points and positive identity-building for girls in engineering