Smarter Balanced Staff

Smarter Balanced is a public agency supported by its members, and is housed at the University of California Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension. Contact us.

Executive Team

Tony Alpert

Executive Director

Nirupa Mathew

Deputy Executive Program Officer for Content and Accessibility

Rochelle Michel, Ph.D.

Deputy Executive Program Officer

Christyan Mitchell, Ph.D.

Executive Operating Officer

Lynelle Morgenthaler

Executive Program Officer

Executive Team Support

Joana Espinoza

Executive Administrator

Lisa Forns

Executive Administrator

Human Resources

Valerie Chavez

HR Specialist

Kahil Hankston

Director of Human Capital Strategy

Sakinah Nuckles

HR Coordinator

Internal Operations

Justyna Canning

Director of Finance

Wairimu Cotten

Project Manager

Ana Maria Dascalita Haut

Project Manager

Melissa Estuesta

Contract Monitor

Camilla Fincham

Project Manager

Susan French

Contract Monitor

Rami Houssari

Finance & Budget Manager

Diana Lomas

Administrative Specialist

Renee Longoria

Project Manager

Marty Mineck

Director, Business Development

Militza Seehaver

Finance Analyst

Russ Wegfehrt

Director, Strategic Planning

Jackie Wyatt

Project Manager

Communications and External Affairs

Kimberly Blanchard

Director, External Affairs Programs

Ashley Byrum

Communications Specialist

Vaneh Darakjian

Communications Specialist

Content and Student Supports

Sarah Arfeen

Quality Business Analyst

Fernando Castillo

Lead Mathematics

Cindy Gould

Lead Product Manager, Reporting

Mary Irwin

Group Product Manager, Reporting

Tere Jimena

Lead, Accessibility & Inclusion

Natasha Johnson

Associate Director, English Language Arts/Literacy

Wendy Mathieu

Senior Director, Product Management

Tina Posner

Director, Tools for Teachers

Lori Sheirich

Technical Project Manager

Shauna Stewart

Administrative Specialist

Bryan Toller

Director, Mathematics

Mark Valderrama

Senior Test Production Analyst

Associate Product Manager

Bailey Vanderkolk

Jason Varcoe

Lead Product Manager, Tools for Teachers

Brad Vasil

Director, ELA

Katlyn Westgate

Assessment Production Specialist

Information Technology

Rashidul Bhuiyan

Software Test Engineer

Louis Blakely

Cloud Infrastructure Manager

Kristin Bradham

Senior Web Developer

Alex Chivers

Administrative Specialist

Alex Dean

Director of Software Development

Andrew Facchiano

Sr. Web Developer (TIMS)

Peter Flores

Director, Application Services

Melissa Lauzon

DevOps Administrator

David Malveaux

Director of Infrastructure Services

Charles McIntyre

Senior Director, IT

Ipsita Mohapatra

Test Automation Engineer

Jessica Müller

Director of QA, UX and Agile

Shankar Ramachandran

Associate Director, Application Administration

Kristi Seymour

UX/UI Designer

Sanket Sharma

Java Developer

Danny Shultz

Associate Director, Tech Lead, Reporting

John Wood

Sr. Business Analyst

Xuping Xu

Senior Java Developer (RDW)

Member Services

Ashley McGrath

Senior Advisor, Government Relations

Supports for Instruction

Sarah Birgé

Lead, Tools for Teachers

Lauren Butler

Project Manager, Consortium Reporting

Chari Holman

Events Coordinator

Muriel Ortiz

Coordinator, Tools for Teachers

Systems Design

Tharunya Chandrashekar

Data Analyst

Teresa Dillard

Administrative Specialist

Catherine Francis

Director, Psychometrics

Shumin Jing

Psychometrician

Hotaka Maeda

Senior Psychometrician

Donald Murray

Director, Research Data Analysis

Aren Simmons

Research Data Analyst

Julia Wallace

Research Data Analyst