We are pleased to announce that Sammie Oputa has joined the Lab as Executive Assistant and Design Associate!

Sammie’s background ranges from health sciences to education with a focus on community empowerment. Prior to the Lab, Sammie worked with City Year, an education based non-profit working to tackle the dropout crisis in underserved schools across America.  During her time with City Year, Sammie worked with 9th grade students in Philadelphia to keep them on track to graduate and then continued her work with the DC chapter as a project leader to support school transformation efforts in Wards 7 and 8.

At the Lab, Sammie directly supports the Lab’s founder and President, Kathleen deLaski, as well as meeting the logistical needs of the Lab team across our various projects. Sammie contributes to our visual communications through creative storytelling and design and works with the Lab’s education designers to support internal and external operations.

Sammie earned a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology from Temple University, where she began to pursue her passion for education and community empowerment as an on-campus peer health educator. She hopes to use her collective experiences and draw on her creative abilities to help the Lab deliver on its mission to design education toward the future of work.

Quote from Sammie Oputa: “I feel incredibly fortunate to be working at Education Design Lab to join in on the important work of creating equitable pathways to success for all. The importance of education has been reiterated to me from an early age and I have seen firsthand how access to quality education can change lives. I believe it is a right that belongs to everyone and I’m excited to support the Lab in designing more paths for that to happen.”

From Kathleen deLaski, President and Founder:  “A key goal with our hiring is to find innovators who have a ‘range of motion.’ We mean by that different skill sets, but always rooted in a passion for education reform. Sammie is creative, a talented graphic designer, event planner and project organizer, with a strong interest to grow as an education designer.”

Welcome to the team, Sammie!