AugmentED
How might we thoughtfully combine the strengths of educators and AI to transform teaching and learning, especially for the students who have been the least well served by our education system? What becomes possible when educators, researchers, and technologists collaborate as equal partners to design tools that enhance learning and human connection?
AugmentED aims to create an education system where technology amplifies the irreplaceable human elements of instruction while equipping students with the skills they need in an AI-driven world.
Unlike traditional technology efforts that engage teachers as product testers, AugmentED will put teachers in the driver’s seat as true co-designers. Teams of expert teachers, AI engineers, and computer science and education researchers will co-create new models for teaching and learning for the age of AI and effective AI-powered tools that support these new models.
Sherry has dedicated her career to improving government systems for underserved communities as a senior policymaker in two presidential administrations, social entrepreneur, and public interest attorney. She is the founder and executive director of AugmentED. Previously, she served as the head of social impact at OpenAI. In the Biden Administration, she led the division of the White House Office of Management and Budget charged with overseeing the development of policies and budgets across the federal government’s education, labor, and social services agencies. Before joining the Biden Administration, Sherry founded and led Foster America, a nonprofit dedicated to reforming the U.S. child welfare system. In the Obama Administration, she served as a domestic policy advisor to then-Vice President Biden and a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education. Earlier in her career, she was a senior education counsel in the U.S. Senate and a children’s civil rights attorney at the Juvenile Law Center. Sherry serves on the boards of Playlab and Accelerate. She received a master’s in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, a master’s in public policy from Harvard, and a J.D. from Columbia.
Professor Caitlin Mills, Co-Founder, Chief of Research and Impact for AugmentED, is also currently an Associate Professor at the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Notre Dame, then completed her postdoctoral training in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. She spent four years in the Psychology Department at the University of New Hampshire before moving her lab to UMN.
Dr. Mills’ research program has been centered on engagement, mind-wandering, and affect during complex learning and everyday life. She has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and was recently awarded the Tom Trabasso Young Investigator Award from the Society for Text and Discourse. She serves on multiple editorial boards and has co-chaired several conferences including Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics and Knowledge.