CODE & CIRCUIT

Dr. Towle serves as the Executive Director of Code & Circuit. She also serves as the founder of Full Circle Classrooms (FCC). FCC provides consulting, facilitation of workshops, and national/international conference presentations from which educators and school leaders gain tools to create effective, learner-centered landscapes. This, in conjunction with Code & Circuit, has led to school visits with Spot the robotic dog, whereby Lori actively engages students in brain-based learning and Spot demonstrations. Lori completed her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, serves as a member of Education Reimagined, and was a lab member of the MIT Gabrieli Lab.

Lori is a passionate educator who strives to provide students with meaningful, authentic teaching and learning experiences. Her educational philosophy has developed over the past two decades, during which time she was fortunate to teach at all levels, primary through collegiate. Her schooling includes Bowdoin College, The University of Southern Maine, The United States Sports Academy, and Northcentral University. Inspired by personal meetings with Sir Ken Robinson and Scott Barry Kaufman, professional development has focused on educating whole child, creativity in schools, and rethinking education.

After receiving a degree in computer science from Wheaton College in 2000, Ken co-founded software company Ecamm Network. Recognizing the need for mentoring and inspiration in the field of computer science, Ken founded Code & Circuit in 2014. Ken creates, teaches and co-teaches many of the Code & Circuit classes and programs. In addition to teaching computer science, he is passionate about nature, and supports local land conservation efforts.

Gail Ramsay is a K-12 Massachusetts certified Instructional Technology Specialist who coordinates and leads our K-2 level classes at Code & Circuit. With a Masters of Science in Educational Technology and 20 years’ experience as an educator, her enthusiasm is evident in her classes. Prior to her work in the schools, Gail earned the "Publishers Award" from the New York Times as well as the "Unsung Hero Award" for her work in the Northeast Region, deploying laptops to reps in the field and providing computer training. Currently, Gail works as a consultant delivering software training, and she is on adjunct faculty at the North Shore Community College, where she enjoys teaching computer classes.

Dr. Bouton received his BA in Neuroscience (Magna Cum Laude) from Amherst College in 1996 and his Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. Dr. Bouton is the CEO of Vyasa Analytics, applying novel deep learning approaches for enterprise clients. Previously Dr. Bouton was the CEO of Entagen a software company founded in 2008 that provided innovative Big Data products including Extera and TripleMap. Entagen's technologies won numerous awards including the "Innovative Technology of the Year Award for Big Data" from the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council in 2012 and Entagen was recognized as a Gartner "Cool Vendor" in the Life Sciences in 2013. Entagen was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2013. Prior to his role as the CEO of Entagen, Dr. Bouton worked as a computational biologist at LION Bioscience Research Inc. and Aveo Pharmaceuticals from 2001 and 2004, leading the microarray data analysis functions at both companies. In 2004 he accepted the position of Head of Integrative Data Mining for Pfizer and led a group of Ph.D. level scientists conducting research in the areas of computational biology, systems biology, knowledge engineering, software development, machine learning and large-scale ‘omics data analysis. While at Pfizer, Dr. Bouton conceived of and implemented an organization-wide knowledgebase called Pfizerpedia for which he won the 2007 William E. Upjohn Award in Innovation. Dr. Bouton is an author on over a dozen scientific papers and book chapters and his work has been covered in a number of industry news articles.

Nan Cook worked as a technical writer at Draper Laboratory, and then pivoted to public education in Information Technology. She happily dragged cables under tiny desks at the Kelley Elementary School, and went on to build and manage large databases in several school systems on the North Shore. Nan’s first computer was the family's "Gateway’’, a giant hulk of a thing that had its own piece of furniture and regularly stalled in the same spot when playing the Oregon Trail. This is probably where Nan's troubleshooting career began!

Stephanie Gottwald, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder and Director of Content at Curious Learning, a non-profit that has created an open source platform solution to deliver and monitor education apps in communities with limited resources. At Curious Learning, she oversees the creation and deployment of literacy and cognitive assessment and learning apps. Stephanie also served as the Assistant Director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University where she directs research into the identification and intervention of dyslexia. Her research interests include the interaction between the acquisition of spoken and written languages and technological tools for language and literacy instruction. Stephanie is the co-author with Dr. Maryanne Wolf of the newly released Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century: The Literary Agenda. She holds an M.A. from Boston College and a Ph.D. from Tufts University in Linguistics and Literacy.

Mark is an MIT engineer with extensive hardware, software, and firmware design and development experience. With this background, he’s implemented numerous products, devices, and real time embedded systems over his career, with some of them shot into space.  He’s a member of the MIT Educational Council, and brought the FIRST Robotics program to Amesbury and Sparhawk high school several years ago, where he continues with his mentorship.

Kurt volunteers teaching after school classes. One of his favorite things to teach is website coding with JavaScript.

Born in Xi'an, China, Cindy received her B.S. degree in Space Physics from Peking University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include Spatio-Temporal Databases, Data Mining, Social Networks, Cloud Computing and Big Data.

An Amesbury resident, Bill has an undergraduate degree in Math from MIT, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley.

He has over 30 years of experience teaching STEM topics starting in graduate school. For 26 years he was professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and at Tufts University. He also had a courtesy appointment at the Robotic Institute at CMU. He still does adjunct teaching in mechanical engineering at CMU.

He is currently the president of the Amesbury Educational Foundation.

With a passion for charting new programs to benefit our youth, Alicia developed the annual Newburyport Elementary STEM Expo, a day-long hands-on learning experience for curious young minds, uniting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math organizations throughout New England with local youth. Having a zeal for project management and relationship building, Alicia leads our program planning and development at Code & Circuit.
Having received a masters degree from the Harvard School of Public Health after earning an undergraduate degree in Psychology/Biology from Mount Holyoke, Alicia brings years of experience working in various capacities for a non-profit to support families of children with special needs.
For extracurricular interests, Alicia enjoys stained glass making and learning coding for the creative expression it allows.

George is an intellectual property attorney practicing in Boston. George’s law practice involves both the procurement and protection of intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks and copyrights. Before embarking on his legal career, George was a systems engineer for Lockheed Martin where he helped design, build and install air traffic control systems throughout the world. George received his engineering degree from Vanderbilt University, majoring in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. George graduated from the University Of New Hampshire School Of Law (formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center).

Wyatt is a graduate of Salem State with a degree in Finance. With a passion for Esports, he has competed on the local and national levels on various gaming platforms. In addition to serving as our Esports Coach, Wyatt teaches Python and Javascript at Code & Circuit, introducing students to the coding behind gaming.

Steve is the PreK-12 Science Program Coordinator for Andover Public Schools. Over his 30 year career in science education, he has taught biology and life sciences at the middle and high school levels in private, public, and charter schools. He has an interest in international education and has taught as Fulbright Teacher in both Hungary and India. Steve is a National Board Certified Biology Teacher and holds a doctoral degree in science education from UMass-Lowell.

Will is a student at WPI, where he continues to embrace his passion for computer science. As a high school student, Will was part of our Spot Team, developing the first web server and interface of its kind to enable students to code Spot in Scratch. We are fortunate to have his continued involvement at Code & Circuit.

Jolyn first discovered Code & Circuit as a parent, but now volunteers teaching after school classes.

Dane Fawkes volunteers at Code & Circuit teaching 3D printing and design. He has degrees in Mechanical Engineering, business, and management.