Simon Initiative Associate Director for K-12  

Dr. Maggie Hannan, a learning scientist and engagement specialist, leads the Simon Initiative’s K-12 work, which is currently focused on four dimensions:

• building a cohesive infrastructure to support learning sciences research at CMU,
• developing and maintaining partnerships with other local and regional educational organizations,
• developing and maintaining ethical, responsive relationships with educational practitioners in both formal and informal contexts, and
• exploring the necessary implementation supports to make educational technologies useful, accessible, and meaningful across different organizational contexts.

These dimensions work together to more deeply integrate the Simon Initiative into the rich local learning ecosystem in Western Pennsylvania, and further develop CMU’s engagement with formal and informal K-12 educational organizations. This work is supported by generous grant from the Grable Foundation.

She earned her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Sciences and Policy program in 2018. She has worked in numerous education policy networks and partnerships, collaborating with state departments of education and nonprofit foundations to build and evaluate large-scale policy initiatives. Her work focuses on interorganizational networks, policy implementation, scaling innovations in complex systems, and the interplay between organizational context and educational technology.

Contact Maggie by email at: mqhannan@andrew.cmu.edu.