People

Joel Breakstone is Co-Founder and Executive Director of DIG. He directed the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) from 2013 to 2023. He leads DIG's efforts to research, develop, and disseminate free curriculum and assessments. This work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and E.W. Scripps. His research has appeared in a range of journals, including  Educational Researcher, Misinformation Review, and the Journal of Educational Psychology, and has won awards from the American Historical Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, and the National Technology Leadership Initiative. He completed a B.A. in history at Brown University, a M.A. in Liberal Studies at Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Before Stanford, he taught high school history in Vermont.

Camila Lee is DIG’s Program Coordinator. Previously, she was an instructional designer and research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Teaching Systems Lab. She holds a B.A. in computer science from Wellesley College.

Teresa Ortega is DIG’s Director of Curriculum. She collaborates on all aspects of DIG’s curriculum development, research studies, and professional development. She previously served as the Associate Director of SHEG. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in history from Stanford.

Kimberli Smith is DIG's Operations Associate. Previously, she was the Senior Curriculum Director at Imagine Learning, where she led the development of a 6-12 Social Studies curriculum. She holds a B.A. in history and social sciences from the University of the Pacific, as well as an M.A. in history from the University of California at Davis. She taught high school social studies for 10 years before making the transition out of the classroom in 2017.

Mark Smith is DIG’s Director of Assessment. He previously served as Director of Assessment for SHEG. Along with colleagues Joel Breakstone and Sam Wineburg, he led the development of SHEG's assessment website, Beyond the Bubble. He received a Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014 and also holds a M.A.T. in secondary social studies education from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in history and political science from the University of Northern Iowa. Previously, he taught high school social studies in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Plano, Texas; and Palo Alto, California. His research is focused on K-12 history assessment, particularly on issues of validity and generalizability.

Sam Wineburg is Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of DIG. He is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education, Emeritus, at Stanford University. Educated at Brown and Berkeley, he holds a doctorate in Psychological Studies in Education from Stanford and an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Umeå University. In 2002, Wineburg founded the Stanford History Education Group. His current work focuses on how people judge the credibility of digital content—research that has been reported in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, TIME Magazine, the BBC, and Die Zeit. His latest book, Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online, with Mike Caulfield, was published in 2023 by the University of Chicago Press.

Will Colglazier graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in history and economics. He earned his Master of Arts in Teaching at Stanford’s Teacher Education Program. Since then, he has taught U.S. history at a Bay Area high school for six years, as well as coached girls’ soccer. In 2014 he began co-teaching the course in Curriculum and Instruction in History and Social Science for STEP. When Will is not thinking historically, he enjoys training for triathlons and getting into trouble with his son.

Brad Fogo is an Associate Professor of teacher education at San Francisco State University, where he teaches new history/social science teachers. He was previously the director of curriculum and professional development for SHEG. He now serves as a curriculum and professional development consultant to DIG. A public school history teacher for nine years, he holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teacher Education from Stanford. He has been involved in the research and development of several SHEG projects and has worked with teachers throughout the country with the Reading Like A Historian curriculum. His B.A. in history is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he holds an M.A. in history from the University of Montana. 

Monica Marin is DIG's Spanish curriculum translator. She grew up in Santiago and earned a B.A. in History from the Catholic University of Chile in 2005 and a Master’s Degree in School Leadership and Administration from the University of Barcelona/IL3 in 2014. Throughout her career, Monica has taught Spanish Language Arts and History in a variety of places, including New York City, Tanzania, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. In addition to her work with DIG, Monica currently is an IB Humanities and Spanish Language and Literature teacher at Del Mar Academy, an international school in the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. 

Sarah McGrew is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She previously co-directed SHEG's Civic Online Reasoning project. She grew up in Michigan and earned a B.A. in Political Science and Education from Swarthmore College before completing the Stanford Teacher Education Program. After STEP, she taught world history in Washington, D.C., for five years.

Elizabeth Reynolds is a PhD Candidate in Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland. She supports curriculum development for DIG. A former middle school social studies teacher in Philadelphia, Elizabeth earned her B.A. in Politics from Ursinus College and her M.S.Ed. in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

Valerie Ziegler teaches U.S. history, economics, and AP U.S. politics and government at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco. She served for three years as the chair of the social studies department and is currently a team teacher in the Teacher and Green Academies. She received a B.S. in Business Administration from Indiana University and a M.A. in Education Technology from the University of San Francisco. In 2008, she piloted the first version of the Reading Like a Historian curriculum and continues to be involved in the development process for new curriculum and assessments. She has also led efforts to provide professional development for other SFUSD teachers in using the RLH approach. In 2010, she was named one of five California Teachers of the Year and the Gilder Lehrman California History Teacher of the Year.