Our Board

We are gratified that the following thought leaders in critical thinking and education endorse The Critical Thinking Institute’s mission and methodology.  As members of its Advisory Board,
these experts help guide the Institute in fulfilling its mission to create as many critical thinkers in the world as possible.

Ken Bain, an award-winning teacher and writer, is the author of What the Best College Teachers Do (Harvard University Press, 2004), which won the 2004 Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for an outstanding book on education and society, and has been one of the top selling books on teaching and learning. It has been translated into twelve languages and was the subject of an award-winning television documentary series in 2007. The sequel, What the Best College Students Do, also from Harvard University Press, won the Virginia and Warren Stone Prize in 2012, and has become an international best seller. Ken is an historian whose books in that area focus primarily on mid 20th century US political history, and include The March to Zion and the forthcoming Last Journey Home: Killing Roosevelt. He founded teaching centers at four major universities (Vanderbilt, Northwestern, NYU, and Montclair State), served as a professor of history for more than thirty years (winning several teaching awards), and held various administrative posts, including vice provost and provost. He has given invited workshops or lectures at over six hundred schools and events--in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. He has worked with elementary and secondary schools, universities and colleges, and has served as a special consultant with various governments (including the European Union) and with institutions around the world. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenBain1

Judith Cunningham is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Montessori Model UN. Judith founded MMUN to help students find their voice, take action and build peace. This program aligns the idealism and capacity of students 9 to 18 years to understand global/ local problems that break their hearts to take action and to have an impact on the world they want.

Judith holds an AMI Elementary Diploma, a Master’s Degree in Education, post-graduate work in Alternative Dispute Resolution. She is a board member of Montessori Europe and Youth for a Better World.

Prior experience includes 17 years as a Montessori teacher for elementary and middle school, 15 years as a Montessori Head of School in the US and Canada.

MAJ Randy Foster is a retired USAR Military Intelligence officer who most recently served as the G2 for the 103d Expeditionary Sustainment Command. His varied career includes experience in the military, commercial, and educational sectors. He has deployed to Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Qatar and has led or been involved in several command level initiatives and research projects for the Department of the Army Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, the International Security Assistance Forces – Afghanistan, NATO, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. His military accomplishments also include service in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear Submarine Officer and as the Communications Officer and Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander on the Airborne Command Post “Looking Glass” at the U.S. Strategic Command.

Jayme Anne Goldberg is the Founder of Consequential Flowers, an inclusive digital platform that blends technology innovation, leadership experience, and educational neuroscience to accelerate empowerment of ambitious, young people to bloom as bold self-leaders.

Jayme has a track record of combining her expertise in strategy, entrepreneurship, finance, and data analytics to create value in evolving industries and to scale organizations.

Jayme co-founded a consumer data analytics company and served as Chief Strategy Officer for a BNY Mellon Investment Management subsidiary. She served on the External Advisory Board of Penn State Schreyer Honors College, actively mentors college students, and volunteers for Why Not Prosper 501c3.

Jayme holds a B.S. in Business with Honors in Finance from Penn State Smeal College of Business and Schreyer Honors College. She earned an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Dr. Grove taught high school history and served as research director for a student exchange organization. He then taught at Columbia, New School, and Beijing Foreign Studies Universities, and co-authored Encountering the Chinese (Hachette U.K.).

For the Encyclopedia of Intercultural Competence, he wrote the “Culturally Appropriate Pedagogy” entry. For the International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, he wrote the “Pedagogy Across Cultures” entry.

Louis E. Newman is the former Dean of Academic Advising and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. At Stanford his responsibilities included overseeing the undergraduate residential advising program, the pre-law and pre-med advising programs, transfer and co-term student advising, new student orientation programs, a summer bridge program for students from underserved backgrounds, and the university's academic progress review system.

He is also the John M. and Elizabeth W. Musser Professor of Religious Studies, Emeritus, at Carleton College, where he taught for thirty-three years. During his tenure at Carleton, he served as an Associate Dean of the College, which included expanding the advisor training program and launching new programs to support academic advisors. He also served for a term as Director of the Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching, which sponsored weekly programs for faculty and staff on all aspects of pedagogy, academic policy, and trends in higher education. In this role he also functioned as the designated mentor to the faculty at Carleton, which is consistently rated by US News & World Report as #1 for undergraduate teaching.

He is also an internationally recognized scholar in the field of Jewish ethics and has written and co-edited several books in that field, as well as dozens of articles. He was the first president of the Society of Jewish Ethics and the co-founder of its journal.

His most recent publication is Thinking Critically in College: The Essential Handbook for Student Success (Radius Book Group, 2023)

Louis Newman completed his B.A. in Hebrew and Philosophy and his M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, and received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Brown University.

Throughout his career, hundreds of students and colleagues have attested to the profound impact he had on their learning and their lives--as a gifted teacher and as a trusted advisor and mentor.

Dr. O’Mahony is CEO of Neural Education, an educational non-profit in the State of Washington that facilitates teacher Professional Development for twenty-first century learners. As Co-PI on the National Institutes for Health (NIH) five-year research program (How Do I Learn), Dr. O’Mahony formulated an educational methodology centered on the human brain, which optimizes, through a brain-based pedagogic model, human potential. This work, situated at the intersection of pedagogy, learning sciences, and neuroscience, is a practical collaboration that explicates relevant neuro-knowledge, which profoundly impacts learning, retention, engagement, and understanding. Outcomes are accomplished through incorporating theories of action and methods that align neuroscience with how the human brain works and how people learn, within existing k12 systems and within a framework of adaptive expertise.

William “Razz” Rasgorshek retired from the United States Marine Corps after 29 years of service. His last position, for eight years, was as a Seminar Leader at the US Army Training and Doctrine Command Red Teaming School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University with a Master of Science in Adult Learning and Leadership, Touro University International with a Master of Business Administration, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. Currently, Razz is a consultant in Red Teaming Education and Facilitation and is pursuing interests in learning, leadership, and business development.

Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs in comprehensive Humane Education, linking human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection and offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. IHE also offers an online Solutionary Micro-credential Program for teachers, a free Solutionary Guidebook for educators, and award-winning resources. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed “The World Becomes What You Teach.” She is the author of seven books including The World Becomes What We Teach, which became an Amazon #1 Best Seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education, and Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine’s 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Women in Environmental Leadership award. She was also a subject of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series. She holds masters’ degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University.

JW Wilson is the Executive Director of The Learning Code Institute, an organization considered a world leader in developing and implementing scientific-based learning programs. JW is also the author of the soon-to-be-published book Cracking the Learning Code, the culmination of over 30 years of research into the scientific bases of how to accelerate the speed of learning, motivation, and behavior change.

The key finding is that each of us has a genetically implanted Learning Code, represented by over 6000 genes that must be turned on before creating long-term memory or lasting behavioral change. JW’s passion, in fact, his crusade, is to bring this essential knowledge to the world.

He has developed and managed many businesses, including corporate training firms serving Fortune 500 clients such as IBM, and AT&T. In the 1990s, JW was president of one of the world’s leading accelerated learning companies.

He has owned the largest media marketing firm in the Pacific, developed the country’s only holistic treatment center, was a founder of The Veterinary Institute of Integrated Medicine, and has produced over 1000 TV shows and commercials.

His diverse background has placed him in Who’s Who in Medicine and Health Care, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World.

This comprehensive book will “break your thinking machine” about what learning is and how to create it in yourself and others. "Cracking The Learning Code" reveals the simple fact that we are designed with the biological capacity to transform ourselves and the world for the better… quickly. It offers an in-depth perspective on how our outdated learning strategies have created a world floundering in problems and why so many of us are not living up to our own expectations.

Its goal is to help you accelerate the speed at which you learn so you can live a more joyful, fulfilled, and meaningful life. And, if you so choose, to use this more scientific approach to make a more significant impact on your work and in the world.