Next Generation Learning Center Staff

Behind the scenes of NGLC is a dedicated team moving the mission of the organization forward, helping to bring next gen learning to today’s students. With strategic guidance provided by the NGLC Advisory Council, it’s the network of innovative educators working with their communities to improve student success that inspires us. Learn more about who we are, what we do for NGLC, where we live, and what we care about. See the smiles? We love what we do!

Media inquiries? Contact Kristen Vogt.
NGLC consulting services? Touch base with Carlos Beato.

Carlos M. Beato (he/him/his/el) | Co-Director
Home base: Greenbelt, MD
Connect: @BeatoDr

As the newest crew member, I am coming in with a fresh set of eyes to ensure excellence in program delivery, tools development, internal flow, and organizational learning and serve as the NGL “practice ambassador.” Along with Andy, I also work to continue our work on transformational design and infusing DEI/social justice into what we do on a daily basis. I am beyond excited to join NGLC in creating a whole new table and expanding on the amazing work that has been done in the name of students across the country. Together, we will create a more inclusive organization which is representative of the communities of practice we serve.

Prior to joining NGLC in July of 2021, I served as the founding principal at the International High School at Langley Park (IHSLP) in Bladensburg, Maryland. It is an innovative community school that serves English language learners (ELLs) through a competency-based approach. Prior to founding and launching IHSLP, I was a teacher and an assistant principal at high schools in the Bronx and served as a director of college counseling at College Bound Initiative. A Pahara Fellow, I have spoken about my work at Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, and University of Maryland.

I am a recipient of the NYC Teaching Fellowship and the Posse Foundation leadership scholarship of over $100,000. I hold an M.A. from CUNY at Lehman College and an M.A. from New York University. I also hold a doctorate from the University of Maryland - College Park where my research focused on culturally responsive mathematics and ELA classrooms in the context of instruction for ELLs. I recently co-authored a paper for the Rutgers University Reparative Justice, Racial Restoration, and Education Editorial Series titled “Unearthing Hidden Gems in an American Public High School: A Three-Pronged Approach to Meeting the Needs of Diverse Students Through an Equity Lens,” released in August of 2021.

Andy Calkins | Co-Director
Home base: Gloucester, MA
Connect: @AndrewCalkins; LinkedIn

I am passionately in love with my job, which is to work with the crackerjack team you can meet on this web page and with our more than 150 pioneering grantees and partners to catalyze a next gen learning revolution across K-12 public education in the U.S. That means that I wake up every day, looking forward to working with impatient, visionary, hard-working, kid-loving, social-purpose-driven, get-important-things-done kinds of people. All in the interest of fundamentally reimagining the experience that children and young adults have in our nation’s public schools so that they can thrive—and contribute—during that experience and for their adult lives.

That pretty much defines my job. Each day I wonder how I ever got so lucky.

Prior to joining NGLC in April 2011, I served as senior program officer at the Stupski Foundation, senior vice president at the education reform group Mass Insight, executive director of Recruiting New Teachers, Inc. (the nonprofit behind the national “Reach for the Power: Teach” campaign working to build a highly skilled, diverse teacher workforce), and as the editor of Electronic Learning magazine at Scholastic Inc. Oh: and there was also my very first full-time job, which was to create the FunStuff pages and detective riddles for one of Scholastic’s weekly elementary newsmagazines, back in the day. Chief Hugh R. Guilty and Detective Ida Knows—that was me.

I hold a B.A. from Harvard College and was a Henry Fellow at Cambridge University in the UK. I am the lead author of The Careers in Teaching Handbook and The Turnaround Challenge, Mass Insight’s 2007 report on turning around the nation’s persistently underperforming schools. When I’m not working to catalyze next gen learning, I’m enjoying the life of Cape Ann, in Massachusetts, where my wife and I have raised three daughters including one artist and art teacher, an actress/drama teacher, and a celebrity cake designer in NYC. We are hoping that Daniel Pink was right and that the MFA is “the new MBA.”

Kristen Vogt (she/her/hers) | Senior Program Officer
Home base: Philadelphia
Connect: LinkedIn

I help school communities tell their stories of transformation and learn about effective strategies, promising practices, and supportive conditions to transform learning. My goal is to help educators, students, and key partners lead the way to a more equitable and just future of learning for our nation’s youth. With programming like Bravely and Learning Excursions, I bring school-based teams together to reimagine learning around a shared purpose and build inclusive environments that support change. Through our website, publications, social media, and blogging, I work with our team to document the strategies that next gen schools and districts use to transform education, capturing the lessons they are learning along the way and highlighting the outcomes that result from their efforts. I also lead NGLC's efforts to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in our mission and practice.

With my background in student development, especially the connection between social-emotional development and academic learning, I want to make education work for students from groups that have been least served educationally. Before joining NGLC in 2012, I was the assistant director for early college high school at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. I began my career in higher education with programs like first-year transitions, service-learning, undergraduate research, and academic support.

I majored in math at the University of Notre Dame and there’s a special place in my professional heart for supporting women and students of color in STEM. I then earned a master’s in higher education administration from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in college student personnel from the University of Maryland. I’m detail oriented (a blessing and a curse), reflective (don’t make me give an answer on the spot!), and appreciate sarcasm. I want to explore the natural wonders of the world, even those in my neighborhood, watch my kids grow up, and read, read, read.