The ECS program happens because of our team, which includes staff as well as a community of dedicated and passionate ECS teachers and professional development facilitators across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Get to know our core team below.
Pictured: ECS staff and PD facilitators at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO at CSPdWeek 2017.
Gail Chapman
Director of Outreach
Throughout her career, Gail has focused on equitable education for all students and the impact that teachers and teaching can have on ensuring this. With ECS, Gail works with partner districts on strategic planning related to implementation of ECS, including professional development, leadership development, and sustainability. She is co-designer of the ECS curriculum and professional development model and leads ECS PD Facilitator development. Gail is the recipient of the 2017 SIGCSE award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education.
Prior to joining the ECS team in 2008, Gail held a variety of positions within the field of education. She began her career as a high school mathematics and computer science teacher and subsequently became the AP Computer Science assessment specialist at Educational Testing Service. Gail then moved to the College Board where she worked in the AP Program more broadly, advocating for broadening access to AP and professional development for teachers to support these initiatives.
In her spare time, Gail loves to sail and take long walks along the San Diego Bay.
Questions about outreach and professional development? Contact Gail.
Joanna Goode
Co-Founder, PD Designer, Curriculum Writer
Joanna Goode is an assistant professor of education at the University of Oregon. For the past decade, Dr. Goode has studied, written and presented extensively about how teachers can create opportunities for more underrepresented students, particularly girls and students of color, to explore computing topics in school. She has received several grants from the National Science Foundation to support this work. Before focusing on this line of research, Dr. Goode taught high school computer science and mathematics in a large, urban school. Currently, she serves on the Association of Computing Machinery’s Educational Policy Committee, serves as the Chair of the Equity committee on the Computer Science Teachers Association Board of Directors, and is a member of the K-12 Alliance of the National Center for Women in Technology. Dr. Goode has authored several journal articles, book chapters, and reports, and is a co-author of the award-winning book, Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing. She is also one of the lead writers of the ECS curriculum and designers of the ECS professional development model.
Questions about research and partnerships? Contact Joanna.
Cressa Perloff
Project Coordinator
Cressa Perloff has served as the Project Coordinator for Exploring Computer Science since January 2017. She holds an M.Ed. in Prevention Science through the University of Oregon College of Education. From 2009-2014, she worked in the field of alternative math education in New York, NY and Philadelphia, PA, tutoring and teaching high school mathematics from remedial to advanced levels. She has been doing this remotely since 2019. She has also worked as an Assistant Editor for a nonprofit photography journal and the Event Coordinator for the LGBTQA3 student union at University of Oregon, and she has independently produced a number of performing arts events. In her spare time, she rides and nerds out on old steel frame bicycles.
Questions about PD logistics? Contact Cressa.
Additional professional support provided by:
Christine Ong
ECS Evaluator, Research Scientist at UCLA CRESST
Interested in our research?
Get to know our ECS researchers in our Researchers & Policymakers Portal.