Meet the Team

Before starting EdSurge, Betsy served as Executive Editor for technology at Forbes Media, a staff writer at The Washington Post and a member of the Board of Editors of Scientific American. She is a Pahara Aspen Fellow and has advised charter schools, served as Trustee of her local library and was “parent of the year” at the local elementary school. Her two sons have been educated at public schools. She has degrees from Newtown High School, Georgetown University and was a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jennifer began her career in teaching and soon became interested in differentiated learning and teaching tools. After studying at the Stanford School of Education, where she also taught, Jennifer joined NewSchools in 2006 and co-founded the Seed Fund in 2011. She has led more than 50 investments and sits on the boards of six edtech companies (EdSurge, Nearpod, Education Elements, FreshGrade & WriteLab). Jennifer developed a math camp for her kids and their friends, scuba dives with her daughter, and learns piano with her sons.

Michael Cohn is co-founder and Partner at GSV AcceleraTE, an early stage venture firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs and their companies in the $75 billion global learning and talent technology sector. From 2011-2016, Michael was a Director at GSV Advisors, co-managing Deborah Quazzo’s angel portfolio of 48 learning and talent technology companies and scaling the ASU GSV Summit, an annual event now in its 10th year, with over 4,000 in attendees, that celebrates innovations and innovators across the global “PreK to Gray” learning and talent landscape. Michael holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University) and a BBA from the University of Michigan. Michael currently lives in Chicago with his wife Shawna and their sons Taylor and Hayden.

Tory Patterson is the CoFounder and Managing Partner of Owl Ventures and a partner with Catamount Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund focused on mission-driven companies. He serves on the boards of six edtech companies. Tory founded and ran Catamount’s education investment practice, where he led investments in leading education companies MasteryConnect, PresenceLearning, EdSurge, TenMarks (acquired by Amazon) Upworthy and Declara. Tory earned a BA from Williams College and an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Raju Narisetti is Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and also the Director of Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economics and Business Journalism. Previously, he was CEO of Gizmodo Media Group, a group of digital journalism sites that included Gizmodo, Jezebel, Deadspin, Lifehacker, and The Root. A media executive with a track record in creating, rethinking and managing major media organizations in North America, Europe and Asia, Raju was previously Senior Vice-President of Strategy at News Corp. Prior to that, he was Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, where he is responsible for WSJ’s digital / mobile content strategy and execution; the Managing Editor of The Washington Post, where he led the integration of its digital and print businesses; the Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe; and the Founder of Mint, the second-largest business newspaper in India. Raju is on the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages Wikipedia platforms globally, and is on the National Advisory Council of The Democracy Fund. His home is in New York City though he is often found, rather plainspoken, @raju.

Before becoming COO, Seth was the Director of Strategy and Operations for the Higher Ed team at EdSurge. Prior to EdSurge, Seth led consulting projects with Parthenon-EY focused on M&A diligence and growth strategy within the education sector. He served as the managing director of the Michigan Social Venture Capital Fund including leading the fund’s first investment in an edtech company, LearnZillion. Seth currently sits on the Board of Leadership High School in San Francisco. He received an MBA and the Cause-Based Entrepreneurial Leadership Award at the Michigan Ross School of Business. He received a B.A. in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis.

Barnett Berry is founder and CEO at the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ), a national nonprofit organization in Carrboro, NC. Created in 1999, CTQ focuses on supporting teachers transforming teaching for the benefit of all students. He is a former classroom teacher, think tank analyst, and university professor.

Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of MAKE magazine, and the founder of the world-renown Maker Faire. He founded O’Reilly Media, Inc., with Tim O’Reilly. He was the developer and publisher of Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial Web site which launched in 1993 and was sold to AOL in 1995.

Dr. Barbara “Bobbi” Kurshan provides executive level leadership of a series of entrepreneurially focused programs and efforts (such as the Milken-Penn GSE Educational Business Plan Competition) and helps develop new degree and non-degree programs at the Penn Graduate School of Education. She is developing an incubator and seed investment fund for the program.

Alan Louie cofounded Imagine K12, an edtech accelerator in Silicon Valley. He has a storied technology career that includes Google, Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems. He started his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs. These days he’s exploring early childhood literacy.

Keith Van Sickle is a long-time entrepreneur with a strong background in finance, intellectual property and operations. He spent more than a decade with Tensilica, helping grow it from a research project into a profitable $380 million business (sold to Cadence Design Systems). Similarly at Silicon Graphics he led finance and customer support teams. He is an entrepreneur in residence at Foundation Capital. He also leads the finance committee for Woodside Priory School (grades 6-12) and the Van Sickle Scholarship Fund.

Esther Wojcicki is a journalist, educator, and vice chair of the Creative Commons board of directors. She has been a pioneer in exploring the interface between education and technology. She is a Board Certified Teacher certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.