Meet the edWeb Team

Lisa Schmucki, Founder & CEO — Lisa founded edWeb.net in 2008 to provide a social network that could help educators and all professionals working in the field of education to connect and collaborate and break down the silos and traditional barriers in education. edWeb.net has become an award-winning professional learning network that serves the global education community. edWeb provides free professional learning communities and edWebinars so educators can share their best ideas and practices to improve teaching and learning, student achievement, and school culture. Collaboration and peer-to-peer learning accelerates the sharing of innovative ideas and resources, and the knowledge of what works and how to do it. edWeb is free for educators thanks to the support and active participation of leading organizations in the education industry. Lisa is an education industry executive with more than 30 years experience in publishing and media. She is a member of the Board of the SIIA Education Technology Industry Association (ETIN). She is a graduate of Princeton University and has a Masters Degree from the Stern School of Business at NYU.

Charmaine Perkins, Program Manager — Charmaine is a program manager who works with edWeb sponsors and partners to manage their communities and edWebinar programs on edWeb. Charmaine helps sponsors and partners book their edWebinars and run their programs, and has a gift for helping all of our presenters feel confident about their presentations. Charmaine has a background in public television and media. As the former production manager of NJTV News, Charmaine served as department head of administration where she managed personnel and also student development by spearheading the station’s internship program. She interned at the Children’s Educational Media at WNET and worked with the Teaching Channel. Charmaine is a graduate of Rutgers University-Newark, where she worked with the Newark Mosaic, an organization formed to showcase and empower community engagement and entrepreneurship in Newark. Charmaine continues her involvement with children and teen groups that support her passions in singing and the arts.

Molly Peterson, Marketing Manager — Molly manages edWeb’s branding, graphic design, email campaigns, annual professional learning surveys, and more! She is currently working on reviewing the user-interface for edWeb.net to be sure the site is as user-friendly as possible. Each week, Molly coordinates email campaigns for our free edWebinars so educators know about the many programs coming up on the schedule. Molly has a degree in art and marketing from Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, WV. Previously, Molly worked at the education company Thinking Maps in Cary, NC and did freelance work.  Molly is passionate about art, creative thinking, and bettering the world around her.

Rachael Garcia, Marketing Coordinator – Rachael is a key member of the marketing communications team at edWeb.net. She coordinates the booking of our edWebinars, and supports the development of our digital marketing and web content, handles our copyediting and proofing, and manages the post-production of our edWebinars including closed captioning. She has a background in business administration and creative design. She is passionate about education and helping others to the best of her ability.

Jess Scanlon, Social Media & Reporting — Jess is responsible for two separate, but important areas of edWeb’s work. She manages all of our reporting and analytics for our sponsors and partners, and also manages all of edWeb’s posting within edWeb.net and on social media, an important way we expand awareness of our programs and support our sponsors and partners.  Jess is used to balancing a lot of tasks throughout the day, as it’s never slow at edWeb. Prior to joining edWeb, Jess interned at New York City-based science and culture magazine Nautilus and wrote freelance articles for a variety of news, science and technology websites. Jess bakes and takes photos when not working. She received her undergraduate degree from Rider University.

Mauri Greaves, Marketing and Communications Specialist — Mauri was a member of our start-up team providing graphic design and creative services for edWeb.net. Mauri has developed our email marketing and print branding and communications, and has also provided editorial review of all content and promotion. Email marketing is the primary channel we use to reach educators and expand awareness of our network and our free edWebinars with CE certificates. Previously, Mauri was a freelance graphic designer, and before that was Creative Services Director for Films Media Group in Princeton, NJ.

Julia Ottesen, PR and Media Relations — Julia manages our public relations and media partnerships helping us to expand awareness of edWeb’s work with articles in major education media publications. She coordinates with edWeb’s writers to make sure the webinar programs receive the best possible exposure through these articles and partnerships. Prior to joining edWeb, Julia interned at TerraCycle and Food & Water Watch and held various roles helping with marketing and customer service. Julia graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Science in environmental policy and a minor in environmental and business economics.

Stacey Pusey, Education Writer & Marketing Research — Stacey writes articles about the ideas and best practices that are shared in our edWebinars so we can spread innovative and best practices to the education community through our media partnerships. She also helps with marketing research and keeping on top of issues and trends in education. Previously, Stacey served as Editorial Director for the AAP PreK-12 Learning Group and as Content Manager for the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP). Stacey has a BS in Communications with a Minor in Archaeology from Boston University and a MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College.

Eileen Belastock, Education Writer — Eileen writes about the ideas and best practices that are shared in our edWebinars so we can spread innovative and best practices to the education community through our media partnerships. Eileen is a CoSN CETL (Certified Education Technology Leader). Through her experiences as a district administrator, building administrator, and high school math teacher, she has been instrumental in providing students with equitable learning environments through multiple 1:1 programs and online educational environments. Eileen’s articles are frequently featured in publications including Tech & Learning, eSchool News, and EdScoop.

Robert Low, Education Writer — Robert is an education writer for edWeb, and his articles have been published in eSchool News and EdScoop. He writes about the ideas and best practices that are shared in our edWebinars so we can spread innovative and best practices to the education community through our media partnerships. His educational publishing experience also includes editing curriculum resources and professional books for Modern Learning Press, managing PD projects for Richard Owen Publishers, and developing online content and ad campaigns for Benchmark Education.

Michele Israel, Education Writer — Michele writes about the ideas and best practices that are shared in our edWebinars so we can spread innovative and best practices to the education community through our media partnerships. Michele owns Michele Israel Consulting, LLC, which serves large and small educational, non-profit, media, corporate, eLearning, and blended learning organizations to bolster products and programs. Her rich career spans over 25 years of successfully developing educational materials and resources, designing and facilitating training, generating communication materials and grant proposals, and assisting in organizational and program development. In addition to lesson plans and other teacher resources, Michele’s portfolio includes published articles covering a range of educational and business topics.

Alex Oss, CTO — Alex was a member of the original edWeb start-up team and has managed our growth and development ever since.  Alex Oss has more than 25 years of experience in enterprise applications, systems design, programming, and a wide range of IT-related responsibilities. Alex has designed and built several generations of database marketing systems and websites using education data. Previously, Alex was Director of Enterprise Applications at Films Media Group, where he began his career as a programmer/analyst. Alex is a graduate of Princeton University with a major in mathematics.

Doug Lerner, Strategic Partner & Systems Development — Doug was a member of the original edWeb start-up team and launch of edWeb on the Webcrossing “Neighbors” social networking platform. Doug is the founder and CEO of Elliptics which owns and operates the Webcrossing product line. Doug works with edWeb to develop new features and functionality.  Doug earned his M.S. in physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and did further post-graduate work at the University of California Davis and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. He has over 25 years of experience in higher education, large program management, student advisement, course development, technical training, project management, and also software development for online education, social networks, online communities and scientific simulation. Doug lives in Tokyo, Japan.

Jon Murphy, Database Developer – Jon manages our Filemaker database that integrates all of our data and gives us the tools to manage and analyze our business and help members track their edWeb PD activities. Jon has been working in database development and analysis since 1997, working with such companies as MoneyGram, Qwest, and the Colorado School of Healing Arts, a post-secondary massage therapy school.  He works as an independent contractor as well as a full-time community volunteer.  Jon moved from the Seattle area to Ecuador, expanding the global reach of our team to South America.