As Beyond100K’s Chief Program Officer, Maya leads the organization’s efforts to grow, and nurture a vibrant network of diverse, powerful partners from across sectors to take action as a community, and make meaningful progress toward reaching our moonshot goal.

Previously, she served as the Science and STEM education lead for both the Colorado Department of Education as well as the Office of the State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, where she oversaw standards implementation efforts and led strategic initiatives in STEM. In this capacity, she also cultivated cross-sector stakeholder groups that served to advance implementation efforts and launch the STEM Learning Ecosystems. Before that, Maya taught 8th-grade science for eight years in the District of Columbia, where she also led professional development and served as a master teacher.

Maya will tell you that her best job was being a middle school science teacher, where she sought to make science real for her students, opening up the city as a classroom through collaborations with community partners like NOAA, where students began to deepen their understanding of how the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed impacted the wellness of their community through inquiry and investigation. An experienced educator, Maya knows that we must be intentional about co-creating affirming and justice-centered learning environments and learning experiences where students can develop and refine their identities in science and STEM.

Maya holds a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and Behavior from Mount Holyoke College, a MAT from American University in DC, and is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Education in Leadership for Educational Equity at the University of Colorado, Denver.