About the Presenters

Laura Adams has experience supporting teachers and students in K-8 settings. While working as a math consultant at Region 18 Education Service Center, Laura’s work focused on utilizing best practices and research-based information for teaching and learning aligned with district, state, and federal initiatives. She provided instructional coaching to campuses across the region, with an emphasis on establishing relationships with teachers that allow for productive modeling, co-teaching, and observations in order to increase instructional strategies and student engagement. All of this work has aligned and transitioned into Laura’s current role as the Math Coordinator for grades 2-6 in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.

Brandon Smith is the Lead Mathematician and Product Director at MIND Education, where he creates experiential learning programs for people of all ages, both in and out of the classroom—including two that are patent pending. Over the past several years, he has focused on developing innovative projects to close what he calls the math “experience gap,” where children have insufficient exposure to math in their daily lives. These projects include interactive exhibits and games for math fairs, camps, and family math nights. Early in his career at MIND, he designed mathematical requirements for the game-based ST Math® software and led the national rollout of the sixth-grade ST Math curriculum. Brandon co-authored a paper in Cognitive Science Research Principles and Implications and has written for the Huffington Post and presented at ISTE. Brandon has a bachelor’s in math and two master’s degrees in pure and applied mathematics.