Hi, I'm Ellen.

I'm a learning strategist and program designer. I work with organizations trying to figure out how learning fits into their mission: foundations, professional associations, higher ed institutions, edtech companies, and cultural organizations like the Smithsonian.

My work sits at the intersection of strategy and execution. I help organizations clarify what problems they're actually trying to solve, then design the programs, toolkits, and systems that solve them. That might mean developing a skills taxonomy for a professional association, designing scenario-based training for sports physicians, running a teacher ethnography for a curriculum publisher, or building a learning ecosystem for a network of museums.

Across all of it, I'm drawn to learning experiences that take people seriously. Experiences that meet them where they are, connect to something real, and leave room for play and surprise. I'm skeptical of learning that's mostly compliance theater, and I'm interested in the conditions that help people actually change how they think or work.

Before consulting, I spent eight years in Chicago running youth programs focused on entrepreneurship, career exploration, and experiential learning. I still care about that work and that city.

I also write about learning and education, and about the broader systems that shape how we think and make sense of the world. You can find that in All Things Learning and Intersections.