Mary Adkison is a Partnership Success Director at ACUE. Mary began her career as a classroom teacher. In search of a broader impact on improving student outcomes, she became an educational consultant, teaching secondary teachers how to help students find success in the classroom through research-based instructional practices. Mary also spent over ten years in higher education, working in technology sales, management, and institutional efficacy, all with a focus on improving learner outcomes. The driving force in Mary’s career is her belief in the power of education and its ability to transform lives, so she was naturally drawn to ACUE’s mission to ensure student success through quality instruction. Mary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in secondary education from Ohio University and a Master of Educational Leadership from Kennesaw State University.

Megan Dusenbery is Chief Revenue Officer of ACUE. Megan believes education can serve as the great equalizer, and she is passionate about helping educators maximize the potential in their students to get there. She is dedicated to supporting the transformation of higher education institutions in their quest to improve outcomes. As a leader, she is committed to building high-achieving teams with synergy and ambition to drive outcomes and revenue.

Prior to joining the ACUE team, Megan worked for Kaplan for 17 years. She strategically developed her team, and much of Kaplan’s higher education partnership efforts, growing from leading a small team to over 100 in her organization. Much of Megan’s work at Kaplan was dedicated to grant-funded and pipeline program partnerships helping under-represented and first-generation students pursue their education and career goals.

Megan has a B.A. in Communications from Auburn University.

As ACUE’s Chief Executive Officer, Paul Skordilis brings more than 30 years of experience in the education and technology industries, successfully leading companies in driving impact and growth at scale while delivering operational excellence. For Paul, leading ACUE is a natural evolution of his commitment to expanding opportunities for learners of all ages and backgrounds by unleashing the power of high-quality and expertly designed professional learning.

Prior to ACUE, Paul was the President and CEO of Infobase, a SaaS-based EdTech company focused on enhancing teaching and learning effectiveness through its award-winning educational resources and digital tools. Previously, he was President of Colibri Group, a provider of test prep and continuing education in the healthcare, financial services, real estate, and home services verticals.

Throughout his career, Paul has held executive roles with high-growth companies in data, analytics, application software, online learning, and education technology solutions. He has extensive global management experience, having operated businesses in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Paul prides himself on being a tireless advocate internally for employees and externally to partners. He attended DePaul University with a concentration in Finance and Accounting.

Dr. Snow is the Chief Data Officer at ACUE.  In this role she is responsible for setting and executing against a strategic research agenda and supporting a culture of data-driven decision making across the organization, with the goal of delivering on the mission to ensure student success and equity through quality instruction.

At ACUE, Snow led the development of the organization’s approach to evaluating the impact of ACUE’s courses on faculty and students at partner institutions.  To date, ACUE has published over a dozen evaluations demonstrating, in part, improved student performance and improved faculty self-efficacy.  Snow has presented papers and sessions about this work at conferences including the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Evaluation Association, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

She began her career in education as a classroom teacher through the Teach for America program and has since worked in various leadership and policy positions across education. Prior to joining ACUE, she was most recently the Director of STEM at the New Jersey Department of Education.

Snow holds an EdD in Leadership and Organizational Learning from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development, an EdM in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an MEd in Educational Leadership from Sam Houston State University.  She graduated cum laude from Villanova University with a BS in Biology and Honors, a BA in Philosophy, and a certificate in Ethics.

Mr. Saidenberg is the Chief Financial Officer at ACUE. Prior to joining ACUE, he worked for four years at Leeds Equity Partners, a private equity firm that invests in the education, training and software industries. With Leeds, Saidenberg evaluated hundreds of companies as prospective investments and also worked closely with a portfolio company focused on improving institutional outcomes across higher education. In these capacities, he saw firsthand the impact and reach great products and services can have. The opportunity to develop an idea into a company striving to improve student and institutional outcomes by improving the quality of instruction is what drew him to ACUE.

Saidenberg graduated from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business where he earned a BS in Management and an MS in Finance.

Dr. MacCormack’s contributions to ACUE’s Community of Professional Practice include:

• Owning vs. Sharing the Classroom
• Don’t ‘Experiment,’ Implement (Evidence-based Teaching Practices) in Inside Higher Ed
• Connecting the Dots: A Proposed Accountability Method for Evaluating the Efficacy of Faculty Development and its Impact on Student Outcomes
• Why Colleges and Universities Need to Invest in Quality Teaching More Than Ever
• The Essentials of College Instruction

Dr. MacCormack is also the co-author of:

• The Learning Imperative in Inside Higher Ed
• Creating Value in Change

Dr. Penny MacCormack is ACUE’s first Chief Academic Officer joining in early 2015 as the organization was just getting off the ground. In this role, she led the creation of ACUE’s Effective Practice Framework—a research-based and independently validated statement of the teaching skills and knowledge that every college educator should possess. She also led the development of the ACUE course learning design, informed by higher education instructors and the learning sciences, and shown to inspire the use of evidence-based teaching practices ultimately resulting in improved student outcomes. Faculty who engage in these offerings are awarded the only nationally-recognized teaching credential endorsed by the American Council on Education. Under MacCormack’s direction, ACUE has published numerous studies finding statistically significant improvements in outcomes, including the narrowing and closing of equity gaps, among students taught by ACUE-credentialed faculty. These peer-reviewed studies have been commended for their range, depth, and rigor of analysis.

MacCormack brings over 25 years of education experience to this work, as a teacher, professor, and district and state educational leader. Throughout, her focus has been on the power of evidence-based teaching practices to move the needle in closing equity gaps and improving student engagement and achievement. Prior to ACUE, she served as Chief Academic Officer for Hartford Public Schools, New Haven Public Schools, and the State of New Jersey where she co-led the state’s College and Career-Ready Task. She taught at Southern Connecticut State University and Montclair State University and holds an EdD in Educational Leadership from the University of Hartford. Her dissertation and much of her previous work focused on designing quality professional development for leaders centered on improving student success.

Mr. Felix is the Chief Product Officer at ACUE. While a lifelong passion for technology has driven his ed-tech career focus, his experience as an educator “on the inside” of schools revealed to him the gap in teacher preparation that ACUE strives to solve.

Early in his career, Felix served as Vice President of Technology at eCollege, helping architect and build one of the world’s first successful higher education Learning Management Systems. He then spent five years teaching in the classroom, deepening his understanding of the craft of teaching. Felix helped power the growth and development of several educational technology ventures involving student information systems, data warehouses, as well as college publishing. He served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Learning Officer at Flat World Knowledge, an open content higher education publisher.

Felix earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and holds an MA in Educational Technology from Teachers College, Columbia University.

For nearly thirty years, Dr. Gyurko has led innovative efforts to create and expand educational opportunities of the highest quality for students at all levels, in the United States and around the world. As Co-founder, Gyurko led development of ACUE’s collegiate teaching standards, the design of ACUE’s online courses of study, and establishment of hundreds of college, university, and system partnerships.

As President, Gyurko maintains major collaborations with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the Council of Independent Colleges, the National Association of System Heads, and other organizations. He has raised over $10 million for strategic initiatives with the Kauffman, Strada, Carnegie, CKF, Gates, and other foundations.

A prolific writer, Gyurko’s articles have been published by numerous outlets including the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Times Higher Education, EdWeek, Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, on Medium.com, and elsewhere. His new book, Publicization: Restoring the Common Purpose of America’s Schools, will be published by Columbia University Teachers College Press in late 2023. You can reach Jonathan at [email protected].