Senior Leadership

Helen M. Parke, Ph.D.

Executive Director

Dr. Parke draws from 33 years of experience as a leading educator, mentor, and researcher in implementing strategic business decisions, improving core processes, and maximizing the impact of learning solutions. She was a graduate faculty member of the University of North Carolina system, where she focused her research publications in the area of transformational teaching. She investigated the implementation of secondary science education in China and Japan, produced instructional videos, developed secondary science textbooks for populations with special needs, and helped faculty members design virtual worlds on a RAVE system. She was also the recipient of several Teaching Computational Science grants from the National Science Foundation to engage teachers in using modeling software for problem solving in 6-12 mathematics and science classrooms.

While working at the university, Dr. Parke served as the director of multiple organizations, including the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education, the Center for Interdisciplinary Instructional Technology Research, the Educational Laboratory for Applied School Research and Development, and the Office of Educational Outreach, where she designed and coordinated professional development opportunities for mathematics and science teachers in rural, low-income areas of North Carolina. In support of her commitment to the professional development of teachers, Dr. Parke has led seminars about Transformational Education for global audiences. For three consecutive summers, she organized groups of thirty primary and secondary school teachers to study at the University of Hiroshima and Osaka University as part of a teacher exchange program to promote world peace, cultural appreciation, and inquiry learning in science and mathematics.

Dr. Parke began her professional career as a teacher in inner-city schools in Tennessee and North Carolina, where she taught problem-based science and mathematics to hundreds of middle grades and secondary school students. Since then, she has maintained her secondary teaching certification in Biology and Chemistry and has received many honors, including the U.S. National Resource Center's Middle Grades Science Instructional Materials award, the Program of Excellence Award for the Scope, Sequence & Coordination of Secondary School Science, and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement National Award for Promising Practices in Mathematics and Science Education.

Dr. Parke received her Master's degree from Duke University and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She also completed the Management Development Program at Harvard University and is PMP certified.