Alumni Council Names New Members

The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Alumni Council has announced its new membership to begin this academic year.

A group of volunteer representatives of the school, the Alumni Council works through engagement and outreach, including event development and support, and admissions recruitment to broaden alumni networks and strengthen the relationship between HGSE and its alumni.

“As we embark on the 2024–2025 cycle of the Harvard Graduate School of Education Alumni Council, we are filled with enthusiasm and optimism. Our focus for the council this year will be fostering improvements around alumni to alumni connection, alumni to student connection, and recognition of the amazing work our alums are accomplishing in the field,” says Emily Williams, director of Career and Alumni Engagement. “We’re excited to welcome our four new members to the Council who will continue to add to our diversity of thought and represent the variety of our vast alumni network across multiple facets.”

The new members of the Alumni Council, who began their four-year terms on July 1, are:

Casey Lartigue, Ed.M.'91, is the chairman and co-founder of Freedom Speakers International in Seoul, Korea. Lartigue, also the co-country director of Giving Tuesday Korea, lectures in public speaking at Seoul University of Foreign Studies, and is a columnist with the Korea Times. His writing has been featured in USA Today and the Washington Post, and he’s won several awards, including being named a Seoul Honorary Citizen in 2022. An author and editor, he co-wrote Greenlight to Freedom: A North Korean Daughter's Search for Her Mother and Herself.

Brian Li, Ed.M.'20, is currently the senior manager at Tsinghua University Online Education Center and the assistant secretary-general of the Global MOOC and Online Education Alliance, where he oversees international collaboration and partnerships related to online education and AI in higher education. He previously worked at Shanghai New York University, Harvard Summer School, and Harvard College in academic advising, student leadership development training, and student leader recruitment.

Siya Raj Purohit, Ed.M.'16, currently works on OpenAI’s Education Go to Market team. Purohit is also a general partner at Pathway Ventures, an early-stage fund investing in the future of learning and work. She was an early employee at Udacity and Springboard, an investor at GSV Ventures, and the founding EdTech/Workforce category lead for AWS Marketplace. Purohit is the author of Engineering America, a book on America’s jobs-skills gap. 

Tamesha Webb, Ed.M.'18, is a doctoral candidate in the Ed School’s Ed.L.D. Program. Before studying on Appian Way, she served as an assistant principal in Boston Public Schools. Webb’s career in education began with Teach For America, teaching elementary students in Baltimore. She also taught middle school history in Brooklyn, New York, and has worked as an instructional coach with Relay Graduate School of Education. Webb has led professional development for leaders of all-girls schools.