About Us

Now in its third year, The Civic Summer Institute for Learning and Teaching provides an opportunity for teachers to come together to form a professional community of practice where promising practices can be uncovered, shared, and eventually disseminated beyond the institute. The week offers an important opportunity to focus on content and pedagogy for civic learning, creating space for educators to reflect on highlights, challenges, and questions students in their deeper civic learning.

Our Team

Danielle Allen

Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Danielle is the author of a half dozen books. She is also the principal investigator for the Democratic Knowledge Project. The Democratic Knowledge Project seeks to identify, strengthen, and disseminate the bodies of knowledge, skills, and capacities that democratic citizens need in order to succeed at operating their democracy.

Tina Blythe

Tina Blythe is the Director of Professional Learning at the Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP), a lecturer the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), and the Director of Learning and Outreach at Project Zero, a research group based at HGSE. A researcher at Project Zero (PZ) for more than 30 years, Tina studies and supports practices for engaging both students and educators in deep learning and thinking, particularly through reflection, collaborative inquiry, documentation of student learning, and the collaborative assessment of student and teacher work. Tina consults for schools, districts, ministries, and other organizations in the US and internationally on issues of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. She is the author and co-author of number of books and articles.

Eric Soto-Shed

Eric Soto-Shed is a lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). His professional and research pursuits center on curriculum development and teacher training. His work aims to promote inquiry and equity in education, particularly within K-12 history, civics, and social studies classrooms. He co-leads the Civics Thinking Project, a research initiative focused on creating innovative, research-based civics assessments and curriculum. Soto-Shed co-chairs HGSE’s the foundations course, How People Learn, and instructs courses in curriculum design as well as instructional methods for history and civic education.

Outside Harvard, Soto-Shed consults on school districts' initiatives to develop and implement social studies curriculum. He conducts professional development workshops for educators at all levels, focusing on historical inquiry, teaching controversial issues, and making learning accessible. He has received several grants from the Library of Congress to train educators to teach with primary sources. He also serves on the board of Self-Evident Education, a nonprofit that uses multimedia curriculum to educate about the history of race and racism.

Eric Alvaraz

Eric Alvarez is an award-winning, 19-year veteran public school teacher. His career has predominantly focused on teaching middle school social sciences courses (History, Government, Civics). He serves as a coach, mentor, advisor, and campus leader for both staff and students. As a campus-based Social Sciences Specialist, he runs civics programs with middle school students while conducting research for his PhD program at Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. His research focuses on critical civic identity development in classroom and community-based settings. He will serve as a supporting facilitator for the Democratic Knowledge Project’s Civic Summer Institute for Learning and Teaching for the second year, having previously attended as a participant.

Katie Giles

Katie Giles is a Managing Partner at Partners in Democracy (PiD), a non-profit organization working to drive democracy renovation nationally by working at the state level, state-by-state. In this role, Katie serves as Executive Director of DKP Launch, the K-12 civic education division of PiD-Education. DKP Launch aims to prepare teachers to teach in support of a healthy constitutional democracy at scale by supporting implementation of high quality curricula and offering aligned professional learning. Katie began a leadership role with the Democratic Knowledge Project in 2019 at Harvard University. Prior to her civic education work, Katie worked for two decades in public health managing the implementation and evaluation of school, out-of-school time, and community-based interventions at the Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Katie also oversaw a national initiative studying the health and cost impact of health policy interventions in school, early care, government, and community settings.Katie has a master’s degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Public Policy Analysis from Pomona College.

Ariana Zetlin

Ariana Zetlin Ariana is a PhD student in Education, Culture, and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on opportunities for civic dispositional development within K-12 civic education classrooms. Prior to doctoral studies, Ariana worked as a Research Program Analyst on the Democratic Knowledge Project and as a Curriculum Designer with EdEthics at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. She also taught high school social studies in Virginia and university-level English in Taiwan. Ariana holds a B.A./M.T. in History and Social Studies Education from the University of Virginia, and an M.Ed. in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Guest Faculty

David Kidd

David Kidd is the Chief Assessment Scientist with the Design Studio at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics (ELSCE). The Design Studio is a hub that supports innovative ethics and civics learning initiatives, originating all across the university and affiliated with the ELSCE, that are dedicated to teaching people how to think through and work collectively on hard issues. Currently, David leads research studies with the Democratic Knowledge Project and the National Ethics Project. David received a PhD in Social Psychology from the New School for Social Research in 2015, where he was a postdoctoral fellow before coming to Harvard University in 2017.

Sarah O'Brien

Sarah O'Brien is the Director of Curriculum and Pedagogy for Educational Ethics, an initiative based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education designed to affirm that ethics matter, and then to help educators and policymakers reason through the ethical dilemmas they face. In her role with EdEthics, Sara creates pedagogical tools that help educators, school and district leaders, and policy makers think through challenging ethical questions in education. She has written or co-written over a dozen normative case studies and co-edited two forthcoming international volumes of case studies and case conversations. Prior to her work with EdEthics, Sara taught in public and independent secondary schools in Massachusetts and California. She also designed online courses and educational practice spaces at the Teaching Systems Lab @ MIT. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and citation in Spanish from Harvard College, a master’s degree in education from Stanford University, and a master’s degree in instructional leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is offering this institute in partnership with Project Zero, a research group based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). The DKP seeks to identify, strengthen, and disseminate the knowledge, dispositions, capacities, and skills civic participants need to sustain healthy democratic life. The DKP partners with Project Zero to design, deliver, and conduct research on civics learning and civics-focused professional learning opportunities. Project Zero’s mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity for individuals and groups.

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