Staff
Board of Directors
Our Impact
Our Supporters
Our Advisors
Our Collaborators
Our Founder
Our Namesake
Employment Opportunities
Pendred Noyce, Chair of the Board
Dr. Noyce is a trustee of the Noyce Foundation, a doctor of internal medicine, and a children's author. She was Co-Principal Investigator of the NSF-funded Massachusetts State Systemic Initiative PALMS, a $16 million dollar NSF-funded State Systemic Initiative to improve mathematics, science and technology education in Massachusetts. Currently, Dr. Noyce serves on the boards of a number of educational non-profits, including TERC, the Concord Consortium, the Boston Plan for Excellence, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications. She also chairs the board of Maine's Libra Foundation and the board of the Rennie Center. Her middle grade fantasy novel Lost in Lexicon: an Adventure in Words and Numbers was published by the Tumblehome Press in October, 2010.
Maura Banta
Maura Banta currently serves as the Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, a position she has held since July 2008. She is IBM's East Coast Regional Manager for Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs. She joined IBM in 1973 as a marketing representative and held positions in Sales, Insurance Industry Consulting and Marketing Management before joining the External Programs Department in 1989. Ms. Banta was named Eastern Regional Manager for IBM's corporate philanthropy, government relations and community relations. in 2006. She is a board member of United Ways of New England, Mass Taxpayers Foundation, Boston Plan for Excellence, Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, and the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. She is the past chair of the board of the Mass Business Alliance for Education. She served for six years on the Massachusetts Educational Management and Audit Council, a position she first held under Governor Jane Swift. Ms. Banta also served on former Governor Cellucci's Economic Development Task Force. She earned a B.A. in economics from Marymount College.
Laurie Brennan
Laurie Brennan has been at TERC since 1994 and currently serves as Chief Operating Officer. As Coo, Ms. Brennan oversees all administrative departments and business development and is a member of the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees. Previously Ms. Brennan was the Budget Director for the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Ms. Brennan received her B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Lowell and her M.B.A. from University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Ms. Brennan currently serves as Co-chairperson of the Central Middlesex Region Citizen Advisory Board for the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services.
Celine Coggins
Celine Coggins is the founder and CEO of Teach Plus. Dr. Coggins is a former teacher and current Mind Trust Education Entrepreneur Fellow. She has a background that includes research, policy and K-12 teaching. She originally launched Teach Plus in 2007 as a subsidiary of the Rennie Center and incorporated it as an independent 501c3 in 2009. She has been a labor-management consultant in Providence, RI as well as Worcester and Springfield, MA and was formerly special assistant to the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education on teacher quality. She is the author of more than two dozen reports and journal articles and the editor of two books. She earned her Ph.D. in Education Policy Analysis from Stanford University.
Robert Schwartz
Robert Schwartz has been at the Harvard Graduate School of Education since 1996, where he currently serves as the Academic Dean and Francis Keppel Professor of Practice. He is a trustee of The Noyce Foundation and is also a board member of the Education Trust and the Rennie Center. From 2004 to 2006, Mr. Schwartz served as the Chair of the Education Management Audit Council for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and from 1990 to 1996, Schwartz directed the education grantmaking program of The Pew Charitable Trusts. In addition to his work at HGSE, Achieve, and The Pew Charitable Trusts, Mr. Schwartz has been a high-school English teacher and principal; an education advisor to the mayor of Boston and the governor of Massachusetts; an assistant director of the National Institute of Education; a special assistant to the president of the University of Massachusetts; and the first executive director of The Boston Compact, a public-private partnership designed to improve access to higher education and employment for urban high-school graduates. Mr. Schwartz has written and spoken widely on topics such as standards-based reform, public-private partnerships, and the transition from high school to adulthood. He received his M.A. from Brandeis University.
Joel Vargas
Joel Vargas is Vice President of High School Through College initiatives at Jobs for the Future and helps to set the organization’s priorities and direction. He also researches and advises on state policies to promote improved high school and postsecondary success for underserved students. He has helped policymakers and intermediary organizations develop state and federal policies that expand early college schools and other school designs incorporating college coursework into high school. Dr. Vargas has directed, initiated, and studied a variety of middle school and high school programs designed to help more underrepresented students get into and through a postsecondary education. He also has been a teacher, editor, and research assistant for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. He is coeditor of two JFF books: Double the Numbers: Increasing Postsecondary Credentials for Underrepresented Youth (Harvard Education Press) and Minding the Gap: Why Integrating High School with College Makes Sense and How to Do It (Harvard Education Press). In 2005, Dr. Vargas was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education as one of “Higher Education’s Next Generation of Thinkers.” He received a B.S. in journalism from Boston University and an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
