As an Associate Director for Learning, Teaching and Pathway Development at ConnectED, Pier supports high-quality instructional design within pathway programs. Experiential learning has always sparked new interests and opened new doors for Pier, so her main passion is designing—and supporting teachers to design—learning experiences that are multi-disciplinary, engaging, and challenging for all students. Pier also supports Common Core-aligned performance assessment design and analysis, along with various aspects of establishing new industry-based pathways within high schools.

Prior to joining ConnectED, Pier worked as an educator and educational researcher for more than a decade, teaching science and mathematics in Massachusetts for six years before returning to graduate school at the University of Michigan. During her graduate studies, Pier wrote science curriculum, designed and delivered professional development, and conducted research in Detroit Public Schools as part of a systemic reform initiative supporting technology-rich, inquiry-oriented science instruction in urban school districts.

Pier holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and multiple graduate degrees in various fields of education and the sciences from the University of Michigan. When not supporting teachers, Pier can be found trying to pass on her nerd credentials, the Mandarin language, and mad kitchen skills to her two rascally children.