Our Team

Laura leads the development of best-in-class products to advance college and career readiness across the state of Texas. Prior to joining the UT Austin team, Laura completed her master's in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where her research focused on access and success in higher education for traditionally underserved students and educational pathways for undocumented youth. Prior to this, Laura worked at KIPP Austin Public Schools designing and implementing programming to support students to and through college. Laura's parents told her she was allergic to chocolate until she was in seventh grade, when she ate a Hershey’s bar and nothing happened.

Matthew reviews and edits Texas OnCourse content for proper style and voice, with accessibility for all in mind. He received bachelor's degrees in English literature and biology from the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating, he assisted academic and creative writers with editorial revisions and guidance on stories, theses, and essays. Matthew is an avid distance runner, a writer, and a lover of books. His creative inspirations range anywhere from Cormac McCarthy to David Bowie to his friends here in Austin and beyond. Believing that an education makes the world personal, he is thrilled to contribute to the editorial processes of Texas OnCourse and UT Austin.

Swetha started her career as an engineer for Microsoft in 2007 and worked as a program manager at Microsoft and Facebook in the online advertising space. She managed the Ads Marketplace and revenue goals, working with machine learning teams to build optimization algorithms. In 2017 she took time off to explore an alternate career in education. She worked pro bono at Sankalpa Academy, a start-up school in Mueller, for a year before joining Texas OnCourse. She is passionate about helping kids discover their ikigai, or purpose in life – to realize their full potential. At Texas OnCourse, Swetha is the product manager on student-facing products. Growing up her family moved a lot; her 12 years of schooling spanned 13 schools! In her spare time she likes to write poetry, meditate, read, and spend time with her loved ones.

Jessica leads the Project Management Office, a team of project managers supporting various initiatives within the Office of Strategy and Policy. The PMO is responsible for project management services for all internal and external projects across the organization. Jessica has 20 years of experience, predominantly in the educational learning industry. She is also actively involved in public service and community engagement in the city where she lives. Jessica enjoys travel, fine wine, and a good workout.

Jamie manages and develops the middle school curriculum used by educators to help guide students through the Texas OnCourse tools and resources as well as the high school transition. Jamie studied science education at Oklahoma Baptist University and went on to teach middle school science for 10 years. While teaching she wrote curriculum for her district, as well. When Jamie isn’t working she enjoys traveling and cooking. Recently she finished nine months abroad in Southeast Asia, New Zealand and India.

Sandra spent years as an IT manager at UT Austin but most recently was the product manager at Leander ISD, assisting with integration into a new SIS platform. Her technical knowledge and product management experience are perfectly suited to making Texas OnCourse's mission a reality. She works closely with the data team on DataDive and supports the content team in their transition to a new CBE platform.

Casey heads up innovation for Texas OnCourse by evaluating internal operations and technology tools, conducting validation research, and incubating new technologies and ideas to increase user adoption and create external go-to-market strategy. Casey is a UT Longhorn many times over; after receiving two bachelor’s degrees from Moody College of Communications, she then received her master’s degree from McCombs School of Business. While at UT, she worked for the Honors Program and the UT Coding Bootcamp as a mentor, helping students pursue their college and career pathways, and mostly recently left UT's IC2 Institute as a commercialization manager, where she pushed innovative technologies from inception of idea to product to market. Casey has quite an eclectic sports history, which includes being a world champion fighter and MVP football player, and she can touch her tongue to her elbow (which is supposed to be physically impossible).

Bill devises and implements a plan for growth and sustainability while overseeing the technology operations. After completing a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Park University, Bill started his career in the semiconductor industry working on leveraging high-performance computing to support the design and testing of processors. Later Bill got his master’s from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, allowing him to become more strategically focused on how to leverage technology to scale and sustain a business. Thanks to his kids, Bill has learned an impressive amount of Disney trivia.

Rose assists with marketing and communications efforts for Texas OnCourse, focusing on online content generation and email/social media marketing. Rose is bilingual in Spanish and received her MA in Advertising and Public Relations from UT Austin in 2014. She brings years of experience in content strategy and execution to the team. She considers herself a grammar, spelling, and punctuation stickler and is a live theatre enthusiast. In her spare time, she teaches improv classes and performs regularly at the Hideout Theatre in downtown Austin.

Matt leads the research and evaluation efforts for Texas OnCourse. He earned his master’s degree in educational policy, organization, and leadership studies from Stanford University and his PhD in education policy and planning at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on ameliorating socioeconomic and racial disparities in students’ P–20 pathways and employment outcomes and has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, and Educational Policy. Matt is thankful he received good advising to stop pursuing a professional rap career, because he wasn’t as good as he thought. As a member of the Bahá’í Faith, he is guided by the belief that all members of the human family can contribute to the advancement of society if provided the opportunity to develop their latent capacities.

Samantha helps maintain and consistently deliver best-in-class content. She primarily works with the Texas OnCourse Academy, editing content and keeping it up-to-date. After completing her bachelor’s degree in political science at Texas A&M University, Samantha interned for the Center for American Progress, where she published several articles for Generation Progress. Samantha followed the internship with nonprofit work in Houston for Advise TX and CollegeCommunityCareer, where she coached high school students through the college admission process and mentored them for success during college. She also holds master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas at Arlington. Samantha believes that with Texas OnCourse, any student can be prepared for any opportunity. Following family tradition, she was named for a witch – in her case, the star of the seventies sitcom Bewitched.

Jaslyn manages a team of instructional designers, editors, and subject-matter experts to support our content development and curation process. She’s probably the only person you’ll ever meet who can precisely recall any set of numbers: bank cards, driver licenses, package tracking codes, etc. Prior to her work with Texas OnCourse, she served as the lead college/career coordinator for Richardson Independent School District, where she specialized in college access and helping students in 9th through 12th grade find a best-fit postsecondary option. Since graduating from Texas A&M University in College Station, where she earned her bachelor of science degree in finance, Jaslyn has worked with several school districts and higher education institutions. Through organizations like the National College Advising Corps and now with the University of Texas at Austin, she enjoys providing postsecondary training resources that will ultimately impact families throughout the state of Texas.

Lara works with districts across the state of Texas to implement Texas OnCourse resources at the secondary level.  She has a passion for supporting students, families, and educators develop effective college and career programs. Lara worked as a central office coordinator in Austin Independent School District and has been a high school counselor for over 10 years in Central Texas schools.  She has a master’s degree in education and an undergraduate degree in psychology from Ohio University. She is also a busy mom of one and can sometimes be found at an outdoor yoga class in Austin.

Amanda supports the content and resources team in developing material, primarily for the THECB higher education modules. She earned  a master’s in education with a focus on instructional design and technology from Southern New Hampshire University and is working toward her doctorate with Northeastern University online. Originally from Katy, Texas, she has spent the last five years living on the East Coast and is happy to be back home away from the cold. She has a two-year-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi named Tater Tot and in her free time enjoys fantasy novels and playing video games. She recently began training to become a jouster.

Jeff focuses on designing innovative and effective learning experiences. He completed a master’s degree from the University of Utah in educational psychology with an emphasis in instructional design and educational technology. During his time at Valor Hall Academy, Señor Jeff taught Spanish to students in grades 1–8 and learned the importance of helping them prepare for high school and beyond. Jeff spends a lot of his time explaining what instructional designers do, but he also enjoys spending time outdoors with his family and working on various DIY projects.

Alhaji leads the design, development, and administration of data warehouse and ETL processes related to the Texas OnCourse and OnRamps projects in the Office of Strategy and Policy. As part of the research and evaluation team, he helps to make data and reports easily accessible to end-users and stakeholders.

Alhaji holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Middlebury College and a master’s degree in computer information systems from American College of Commerce and Technology, where he graduated as valedictorian. He is a Microsoft certified professional and a solution-oriented leader with demonstrated experience in research and data analytics. He is passionate about working with large amounts of data for universities and multilevel organizations. Alhaji’s a polyglot and a globetrotter who has traveled and lived around the world.

Michael leads a team of product managers and designers for Texas OnCourse who develop tech-enabled solutions providing students, families, and educators guidance in college, career, and military readiness. Dedicated to deeply understanding user’s needs, he works with his team to develop simple, focused, and valuable tools to support these efforts. He brings years of experience in product management, developing and launching digital products in media, mobile, and e-commerce for companies such as Under Armour, Pandora, and Mood Media. Prior to his time in product, Michael wandered the mean streets of the music industry. As a part of Six Degrees Records, he worked with a team to support artists and their releases from countries throughout the world – artists such as Bebel Gilberto, Vieux Farka Touré, CéU, and The Orb. This also involved years of producing events and dropping the occasional beat on the ones and twos. A former West Coast resident, Michael has taken to Austin nicely and enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and friends.

Cristina is a full-stack developer specializing in front-end web development for Texas OnCourse and its associated products. She studied Biochemistry and Web Development at the University of Texas in Austin. A lover of all things cinema, Cristina considers herself to be a film buff and the self-proclaimed queen of Seinfeld trivia. She has two Chihuahua daughters, Rubita and Gypsy Witch, and is a HUGE Futbol Club Barcelona soccer fan.

Shruti conducts quantitative research for the Office of Strategy and Policy. After completing a BA in economics from the University of Texas at Austin, Shruti joined the Office of Strategy and Policy as a project manager. Here, she was involved in communication and project management related to research projects. Shruti loves that she is involved in a program that works toward equal opportunities for all. In her free time, Shruti enjoys dancing and catching some Zzzs.

Joseph works with the research and data science team to support both Texas OnCourse and OnRamps, analyzing databases to ensure data integrity and consistency and fulfilling general and ad hoc report requests. He earned his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Hanyang University, South Korea, and his master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin. In his free time, Joseph enjoys taking his beloved wife and two little ones outdoors and doing online learning.

Katelyn leads the project management for MapMyPath. Katelyn earned her master's degree in educational leadership and policy from the University of Texas at Austin. Her background is in student success, as she is passionate about access and equity. Katelyn loves coffee with her sugar and has never encountered an empanada or concha she didn't enjoy. She has traveled to eight countries in three continents and has a goal to travel to at least one country every year.

Patrick began a career as Programmer/Analyst 30 years ago. For most of that time, he worked for a hospital writing and implementing customized health care information systems and applications, for ISPs designing and programming Multi-Level Marketing software and other customer support applications, and at the MIT Design Lab developing an interactive Digital Community and Workspaces website, along with a Digital Library of archival media resources for Islamic Architecture. Most recently he has worked for the University of Texas at Austin in the ITS, Learning Sciences and Liberal Arts ITS departments, developing applications in support of the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Canvas LMS website. He has worked in depth with IBM Mainframes, Unix and Linux environments, AWS and Azure Cloud services, and with Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL and MySQL database environments. A graduate of UT Austin as a Fine Arts major, his hobbies include drawing and painting and continuing to learn about the visual arts, and reading classic literature. Patrick’s current goal is to move into the fascinating world of Data Science as a full-time data professional.

Bryan joins Texas OnCourse as a Product Specialist, assisting with product support requests for all Texas OnCourse products. He studied Leadership & Development at Texas A&M. His professional work experience stems from customer success, management, sales, and product management. He is an avid NBA fan and former 10 time All-American sprinter at Texas A&M.

Kim works with Texas OnCourse partners to develop new content and resources for two audiences new to the organization – parents/guardians and higher education advisers. Having come from an extensive higher education background, Kim is the subject matter expert on academic advising and related content. Kim has her BA in Journalism from the University of Arizona, and her MS in Higher Education Administration from Northwestern University. Born and raised in Colorado, Kim learned to walk and snow ski in the same year.

Darshana is a Data Analyst for the Research and Data Science team. Her responsibilities include fulfilling report requests and helping with various data and analytics/reporting projects/solution for both Texas OnCourse and OnRamps. Darshana joins us from Albany, NY, where she served as a Data Analyst for the Albany Medical Center. Prior to that, she served as a Teaching Assistant for Data Mining course at the University of Albany, SUNY.

Thema works with the marketing and communications team to plan and implement campaigns for Texas OnCourse. A writer at heart, Thema earned her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Howard University, and has since spent her career working on digital content strategy and execution. She is passionate about utilizing marketing to tell stories and create community. Thema is currently teaching herself Spanish with the help of friends and YouTube and is happiest in the presence of tacos.

Allison leads marketing and communications efforts for Texas OnCourse, guiding strategy and execution of public relations, outreach, digital content, marketing collateral, and organizational messaging and branding, together with the marketing and communications staff.

With an approach rooted in community and audience engagement, Allison has over a decade of experience conceptualizing, developing, and implementing communications and marketing strategies. Prior to joining Texas OnCourse, Allison served as director of communications with Public Agenda, a  public policy research and stakeholder engagement organization. A former teacher and firm advocate for educator voice in policy, she is the coauthor of Everyone at the Table: Engaging Teachers in Teacher Evaluation Reform. Allison has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and anthropology from Tufts University. Allison has jumped out of a plane, but refuses to ride roller coasters.

Sandra reviews printed and online materials for Texas OnCourse, focusing on keeping them correct and consistent while expressing diverse voices. She also loves to talk writing and editing. Sandra earned a master of fine arts in writing from the University of Texas at Austin's Michener Center for Writers and went on to complete an editorial fellowship at University of Texas Press. She’s been writing and editing professionally since 2003, so her nose can usually be found in a book – often one she’s editing or indexing. A dog person and one-and-done Ironman, Sandra would give the Sorting Hat trouble deciding between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Julie writes curriculum and instruction for middle school educators to prepare students for college and career readiness. Julie recently relocated to Austin from New York City, having previously worked as an academic advisor with the City University of New York and an English teacher for NYC public schools. She received her BA from Binghamton University and an MA from Hunter College in adolescent English education. Although her daily passion is focused on equity and access in education, Julie can be found on the weekends hiking and reading a good book.

Zack creates and oversees all visual materials at Texas OnCourse, ensuring cohesiveness across platforms. He led the 2018 rebrand that gave the organization its new logo and coincided with a website refresh. With a background in brand identity and social justice – having dedicated much of his career to fighting for marriage equality, prison reform, and environmental causes – he identifies art directions that achieve more inclusiveness and broaden visual messages. His portfolio includes work for such clients as Amnesty International, the United Nations, and Obama’s early grassroots efforts. Zack enjoys a quiet life in the Hill Country with his partner and three rescue dogs. He stands firmly by Gerald Early’s pronouncement that “there are only three things that America will be remembered for 2,000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, jazz music, and baseball. They’re the three most beautifully designed things this culture has ever produced.”

Kathy manages the Texas OnCourse Leader Fellows program, a network of experienced counselors and advisers supporting the implementation of our college and career advising resources. Kathy earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Baylor University before serving as a team leader in the AmeriCorps program City Year San Antonio. Kathy then attended St. Mary’s University, where she earned her master’s degree in public administration and her juris doctor degree. Before joining Texas OnCourse, Kathy managed a college readiness program with Austin Partners in Education and served as a program specialist in developmental education for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. As a first-generation college graduate, Kathy loves being part of initiative to empower students, parents, and educators with information on postsecondary preparedness. In her off time, Kathy leads youth creative writing workshops with Austin Bat Cave.