James Burnett is the Founder and an Executive Chairperson of ORIGO Education. He started the company because he is passionate about education and is continually striving to improve the way mathematics is taught. Over the past two decades, he has authored and co-authored more than 300 mathematics resources for teachers and students aged 5 to 12 and regularly speaks to audiences across Australia and North America. James aims to lift the profile of mathematics through dynamic professional learning and the development of quality print and innovative digital resources for the classroom. These achievements were recently recognized by winning the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in his home country of Australia.

Calvin Irons has been involved in mathematics education for over 50 years. He started his career as a specialist teacher of mathematics in Iowa after completing his BA, and MA at the University of Northern Iowa in 1967. Dr. Irons received his PhD from Indiana University in 1975 (the dissertation topic was the teaching of division). In 1975, he accepted a position at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia where he has been involved in the teaching and the development of mathematics curricula for primary schools. He has received outstanding achievement awards from the university for his work and in year 2014 was the student’s nominee for University Outstanding Teacher of the Year from a university faculty of over 3000 professors. He is the author/co-author of over 600 books or articles including the award winning Stepping Stones F-6 mathematics curriculum, published by ORIGO Education – a company he co-founded in 1997.

Sara Delano Moore, Ph.D. is the learning services manager at ORIGO Education and a contributing author to Visible Learning in Mathematics. An experienced teacher and nationally recognized speaker, her work emphasizes the power of deep understanding and multiple representations for learning. Sara’s interests include building conceptual understanding of mathematics to support procedural fluency and applications, incorporating engaging literature into mathematics and science instruction, and connecting mathematics to engineering design in meaningful ways. She is a fourth-generation educator with experience teaching mathematics and science at to K-8 students as well as experience teaching pre-service and in-service teachers at the university level. Sara earned her B.A. in natural sciences from The Johns Hopkins University, her M. St. in general linguistics and comparative philology from the University of Oxford (UK), and her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Virginia.

Debi started her career teaching high school mathematics in Washington State. She is a contributing author of ORIGO Stepping Stones and currently serves as the Manager of Professional Learning at ORIGO Education. For the last 9 years she has been developing and providing professional development in mathematics content and instructional strategies to K-12 teachers, coaches, and administrators. She is passionate about how students learn mathematics developmentally and has presented workshops and courses both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Melinda Schwartz has been an educator for over 30 years. Melinda has a masters in early childhood education and a doctorate in educational leadership. She has served as a teacher in multiple grades, Pre-K-5; an instructional specialist for grades K-6; an elementary curriculum coordinator; and an elementary principal. Melinda is thankful that her present position as a learning services educator with ORIGO Education allows her to continue to pursue her passion for helping educators do their best work every day.