Ralph Smith

Jennifer has spent her career working to ensure all young people have the opportunity to thrive. As the Deputy Director for the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, she has a range of responsibilities for strategy, management, and community work. Previously, she was the Assistant Director for Policy and Partnership for the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, where she managed the policy subcommittee and Partners Collaborative.

Before joining the Aspen Institute, Jennifer served as the Deputy Director of the American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), where she oversaw the organization’s work on education, workforce and youth policy to ensure all students graduate ready to succeed in college and careers. Prior to moving to Washington, D.C., Jennifer also worked as a classroom teacher, coach and communications officer.

Annelise Pesch, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Temple University. She holds a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development. Her research focuses on ways to support strong learning outcomes through high-quality interactions. She works on several projects advancing Playful Learning Landscapes, an initiative which aims to create playful learning opportunities for families and children in everyday spaces. She is committed to increasing diversity and representation in the sciences and utilizes community-based participatory research practices in her work to support the creation of equitable learning environments.  

Julie Salazar, is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, working under the mentorship of Dr. Andres Bustamante. Her research focuses on re-designing public spaces, known as the Playful Learning Landscape initiative, to provide STEM learning opportunities to families through co-design. Currently she is working with Latine Families in Santa Ana, CA to co-design a mobile application that accompanies the playful learning installations. Her main interests focus on bringing in stakeholders, in this case families, to be part of the design process and allowing for educational technology and learning spaces to be developed and centered around family and community values.

Matthew Kelley joined the Urban Studies faculty at the University of Washington Tacoma in 2008. He earned a Ph.D. in Geography from Pennsylvania State University in 2007 and then spent a year teaching at Bucknell University prior to arriving in Tacoma. At UWT, he directs and teaches the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Certificate Program. In this program, his teaching focuses largely on the application of geospatial technologies and geographic information systems to urban social and environmental problems. His research is similarly focused on the role that emerging technologies can play in the urban community development process. He has worked extensively with community organizations in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Tacoma to think creatively about utilizing digital tools in their day-to-day operations - both to improve the effectiveness of their outcomes and to amplify the voices and knowledge of local residents. Dr. Kelley's recent research activities have aimed to engage critically with the ways that conventional spatial data are used to represent, and mis-represent, distressed urban neighborhoods.