Meet the team
The Educate Ventures Research team consists of educational researchers, entrepreneurs, technology experts and academics in the fields of AI, education and EdTech. We envision an EdTech ecosystem populated by research-minded enterprises, building excellent, evidence-informed learning tools that empower human intelligence.
Professor Rose Luckin, Founder
Rosemary (Rose) Luckin is a Professor at University College London and Founder of Educate Ventures Research (EVR) who has spent over 30 years developing and studying AI for Education. She is renowned for her research into the design and evaluation of educational technology and AI. She was named as one of the 20 most influential people in education in the Seldon List in 2017, the only non-US winner of the ISTE Impact Award, and one of Computer
Weekly’s top 50 most influential women in technology for 2023. Rose regularly provides expert evidence to policymakers like the UK Parliament's House of Lords and House of Commons select committees and the European Commission.
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Rose has published widely in academic journals, at international conferences, through books, and in news media (TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines). Her 2018 book, Machine Learning and Human Intelligence: The Future of Education for the 21st Century, has been translated into Mandarin and influenced many of China's leading AI companies. Her most recent book, AI for School Teachers (2022), is an essential and accessible guide to AI for anyone in education.
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Rose also founded EDUCATE Ventures Research Ltd., a London hub for educational technology startups, researchers, and educators engaged in evidence-based EdTech and leveraging data and AI to benefit education.
Rose has taught in secondary, further, and higher education. She has led many large interdisciplinary international research projects and held senior leadership roles in higher education, including as Pro Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Learning at the University of Sussex before joining UCL in 2006. She is President of the Self-Managed Learning College in Brighton and host of the EdTech Podcast.
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To request Rose's expertise at your event, or see how she supports educators and educational organisations with CPD and AI Planning and Strategy, click the links:
Dr Madiha Khan, Director of Consultancy
Madiha is an AI researcher and Director of Consulting Services at Educate Ventures Research. She works closely with policy makers, HE bodies, school groups and EdTech firms in developing ethical and purposeful approaches towards AI. Her particular area of interest is in the use of data and AI to extract meaningful insights about teaching and learning. She has a PhD in self-regulated learning, specifically exploring a learning analytics approach towards monitoring tutor co-regulation of learners in an online classroom.
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In addition to academia, Madiha has over ten years of experience working in the EdTech sector, advising EdTech firms, accreditation bodies and education and training suppliers on their digital strategies. Madiha’s combined academic and commercial experience enable her to take an evidence based, yet commercially astute approach, towards supporting her clients. She is passionate about the EdTech sector, and the development of high quality, scalable products which improve access to education and opportunity.
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To see how Madiha is helping organisations develop their AI Roadmap and Strategy, click the link:
Ibrahim Bashir, Technical Projects Manager
Ibrahim Bashir is a Software Developer currently working as a Data Engineer. Ibrahim is a Fulbright fellow and has a Masters in Computer Science from Louisiana State University. His work in the last 9 years has focused on the intersection of Big Data, Machine Learning and IoT. Once a passionate hobby roboticist, he hasn’t gone near one in years after 9 of the 12 machines he built from scratch for a swarm robotics project wouldn’t play nice and fried their circuit boards.
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To see how Ibrahim is helping organisations develop their AI Roadmap and Strategy, click the link:
Dina Foster, Head of Educator AI Training
Dina is an experienced former secondary school Deputy Head teacher and is currently a doctoral candidate at UCL with a research focus on how schools develop AI strategy to harness the benefits of AI, and augment teaching and learning. She gained her MA in Education and Technology and also holds a Master’s in Teaching, both from the Institute of Education. Dina is particularly interested in supporting school leaders with the development and implementation of successful EdTech strategies to address school priorities.
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To see how Dina can help your organisation's team of teachers and educators, click the link:
Dave Turnbull, Deputy Head of Educator AI Training
Dave’s seven years’ experience in primary classrooms, including 5 years as his school’s Computing Curriculum Lead, has given him a front-row view to the challenges schools face in developing coherent digital strategies. As Deputy Head of Educator AI Training at EDUCATE Ventures, he’s helping to build next generation CPD for leaders and teachers in this space. Dave has a BA in Media Arts from Royal Holloway University of London and worked in film and television prior to completing a PGCE at Goldsmiths, specialising in Early Years. He planned, developed, and implemented his school's digital strategy, enabling him to guide the staff through remote teaching during the pandemic. He recently left teaching to become the primary caretaker for his son, and is excited to apply his experience to system-level digital capacity building in education.
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To see how Dave can help your organisation's team of teachers and educators, click the link:
Rowland Wells, Creative Producer
A good story might write itself, but not without organisation. Running events, relationship managing your community, penning Tweets, SOPs, agendas, and coordinating projects is what Rowland does best, and they have been doing it since 2003. An occasional welfare officer, waterer and potter of office flora, AV technician, note-taker and EdTech crackerjack, Rowland also specialises in recruitment, quality management, pitch decks, graphic design, marcomms, and storytelling. Outside EDUCATE their activities include the hunt for 90s techno, YouTube vlogging, singing and music production, the rescue of tired bumblebees, and they are the comic artist and writer for their creator-owned space opera.
Morgan Dee, AI & Data Science Team
Morgan Dee is the Director of AI and Data Science at EDUCATE Ventures Research. She leads the Data Science team in using data and AI to extract meaningful insights about human learning. She holds a Master's degree in Data Science with AI from The University of Exeter, where she received recognition for her outstanding academic performance. She also trained as a secondary school Physics teacher at the Institute of Education after completing her Master's degree in Astrophysics from The University of Manchester. With a decade of teaching experience spanning across diverse locations including the UK, Nepal, Malawi, Hong Kong, and Japan, Morgan has developed a deep commitment to the ethical use of AI in Education. Her primary goal is to unlock the full potential of every learner, ensuring their growth and success.​
Jennifer Seon, AI CPD Expert
Jen has over 8 years of teaching experience in a diverse range of socioeconomic and cultural contexts across Europe & Canada, with her most recent and most impactful position being in a particularly disadvantaged area in the UK. This experience, along with the MA in Education & Technology she obtained from UCL have cemented her commitment to closing the educational attainment gap and ensuring that underserved communities are not left behind in this digital era of education.
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She has extensively engaged in discussions around the ethical use of AI in Education, including publications around the use of AI in Education and the need to take a critical approach in the implementation and evaluation of these systems. She has also worked with Jisc (the UK’s digital, data and technology agency focused on tertiary education, research and innovation) and the Pro-Vice Chancellors of Russell Group Universities (UK’s leading public research universities) to co-design the principles of assessment in higher education institutions in response to the challenges caused by the emergence of generative AI.​
Dr Ali Chaudhry, Research Mentor
Ali is a doctoral researcher at UCL with a research focus on Transparency of AI development pipelines for ed-tech products. His love for education as a profession started 11 years ago when he opened his first charity school for Afghan refugees in the suburbs of Islamabad in Pakistan. His charity currently runs three private schools for disadvantaged communities in Pakistan and has empowered more than two thousand students with basic literacy and arithmetic skills . He is also a founder of an ed-tech startup that supercharges operational management of schools with data driven decisions and an agri-tech startup that is disrupting livestock farming and trading.
Dr Kristina Cordero, Research Mentor
Kristina is an EdTech researcher and strategist who lends a qualitative & interdisciplinary perspective to the design, implementation, and evaluation of EdTech projects and programmes. With an undergraduate degree in Spanish Golden Age literature, she worked for many years as a literary translator, researcher and writer. In 2012 she migrated to the world of educational technology thanks to a computer scientist who convinced her to “invent book 2.0” out of a children’s book she wrote. This became her doctoral project and for the following five years she developed and tested reading and writing apps for and with primary schoolers in
Chile and Costa Rica.
Since earning her PhD in 2017 she has divided her time between EdTech development and strategy, teaching and research. Because she is not a gadget lover or “tech evangelist” by nature, she is curious about how others approach technology and incorporate it into their lives, and her research focuses on teaching, learning and literacy in digital and hybrid contexts. Every semester she teaches either literature or translation at Brooklyn College, at the City University of New York, where she explores these issues and tries out new approaches with her students.
In Chile, where she has lived and worked for many years, she is on the academic committee of Por un Chile que Lee, a public-private literacy alliance, and she serves on the board of Troquel, a foundation that provides professional development for reading teachers and mediators. She has an undergraduate degree in Romance Languages from Harvard College and a PhD in Computer Science from Universidad Católica de Chile.
Dr Noa Sher, Research Mentor
Noa’s career has progressed along the lines of both applied and academic research. She has over ten years' experience of working with the public and third sectors in the social domain, mainly in the fields of social services and education, and has vast experience in multi-methods evaluative research. Her current work includes guiding management in organisations within the social domain in programme-planning using logic models and in building measurement and evaluation strategies as well as designing outcomes-oriented case management systems. Noa holds an MA in Social and Organisational Psychology and is working towards her PhD on network analysis of collaborative knowledge construction.
Abayomi Akanji, AI & Data Science Team
Abayomi is an EdTech researcher and a creative Software Developer. He is a Queen Elizabeth Young Leader and has a Masters in Education and Technology from UCL. When he was a teenager, he co-founded one of Nigeria's foremost e-testing platforms, PassNG - which has helped over 500K students to achieve success in their college-entrance exams. Abayomi, who holds a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Computer Science (with First-class Honours), is a winner of the Future Award Africa Prize for Education.
Karine George, Chief Education Advisor
An award-winning, future reimagining educationalist, Karine spent more than 20 years as headteacher in an 'Outstanding' Oftsed-rated school, She is an active research practitioner and ties research, business and education together to transform leadership and pedagogy. An advocate for technology's support of 21st century teaching and learning, she has reported on its use to the DfE, penned numerous articles on educational issues and was a contributing author for 'Sustainable School Transformation: an inside-out school-led approach'.
Professor Ben Du Boulay, Research Advisor
Ben is an Emeritus Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Engineering and Informatics at the University of Sussex, UK, and Visiting Professor at University College London. He has two main research areas: the first is the Psychology of Programming where his main work has been in the area of novices learning programming and the development of tools to assist that process, and the second is the application of Artificial Intelligence in Education. Here he is particularly interested in issues around modelling and developing students’ metacognition and motivation.
The Board of Directors
Dr Steven Roberts, Chair of the Board of Directors
Steven Roberts grew up in South Wales with a happy family before attending Cambridge University, where he completed his undergraduate degree and PhD in Geophysics. During his doctoral studies, he met his wife Caroline and founded a software company for oil companies. Though this venture didn't succeed as planned, it led him to Barclays, where he spent over 30 years. Roberts initially followed a traditional career path in operations and change management, eventually becoming Chief Operating Officer for the UK Bank. A turning point came when he spearheaded Barclays' digital transformation under a new CEO. This experience allowed Steven to reinvent himself, embracing the mobile-first world and fostering innovation. He initiated projects like Digital Eagles and Eagle Labs, focusing on connecting emotionally with colleagues and customers. Steven’s career evolved to emphasise community engagement, nurturing innovation ecosystems across the UK, and developing organisational culture. He maintains a network of connections from various sectors, which he leverages in his current assignments. Steven is a visiting professor at Huddersfield University and a non exec director of ConceptionX and Tattva limited.
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Lord Jim Knight
Lord Knight is a director of Suklaa Ltd, providing advice to clients in education. He is the chair of the board of E-Act Multi Academy Trust, of the Council of British International Schools, of Century Tech Ltd, and of EDUCATE Ventures Research Ltd; he sits on the advisory bodies for Nord Anglia Education, and the Pearson Qualifications Committee.
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As a government minister, Jim’s portfolios included rural affairs, schools, digital and employment. He was a member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet, before joining the Lords in 2010.
He regularly speaks in the Lords on education and technology policy.
Andrea Carr
Having started, built and sold her own UK curriculum and assessment business (Rising Stars UK Ltd, sold to Hodder Education) Andrea now acts as non-executive director and adviser working with education businesses, private equity organisations, school groups and education charities.
Andrea specialises in education technology, assessment solutions and publishing. Among her current roles, Andrea is chairman at Education Intelligence/Teacher Tapp, director of the Teacher Development Trust and is vice-chair of a multi-academy trust in South London.
Timo Hannay
Timo Hannay is the founder of SchoolDash, an education data analytics firm that works with a wide range of clients and collaborators, including media organisations, publishers, EdTech companies, charities, school trusts and government departments. He is also a non-executive director of Sage Publishing and Arden University, and an advisor to several charities. In 2023, he was the convenor of the AI in Education Summit in London. Timo was previously the founding managing director of Digital Science and before that variously ran the online business of Nature Publishing Group, worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, wrote for The Economist, and investigated brain physiology at the University of Oxford and Waseda University in Tokyo.
Catherine Luckin
Catherine has been Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) since May 2018. She has 15 years of experience supporting research and innovation, particularly in the health and medical sciences – through roles in policy, public affairs, strategy and international relations. AAHMS is Australia’s Learned Academy for health and medical science – the impartial, authoritative, cross-sector voice of health and medical science in Australia.
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Catherine brings cross-sector experience from roles at the UK Academy of Medical Sciences; the Royal College of Physicians of London; pharmaceutical company, Pfizer; the University of Sydney; and the University of Technology Sydney. She has an international network from the UK, Europe and Australia.
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During her career, Catherine has established and led initiatives in a range of areas, including policy projects, global programs and funding schemes, in collaboration with national and international partners. She has a BSc in Natural Sciences and an MSc in Science Communication.