About Pseads
Who we become
matters.
Pseads was founded around a question that has guided more than two decades of work: what enables people to see themselves as capable learners, creators, and contributors?
The question
why
The answer is not more information or a single formula.
It is creating the conditions that develop curiosity, reflection, and a voice people believe in.
Pseads works at the intersection of education, creativity, reflection, and connection. The approach is connected because the human being is connected. Across classrooms, youth leadership, educator development, intergenerational learning, film, and community gatherings, we create environments where people can discover that their questions matter, their ideas have value, and their contributions make a difference.
Our approach
Four capacities. One human system.
Learn how to learn.
Inquiry-based, reflection-based, and project-based experiences make learning active, connected, and personally meaningful.
Imagine beyond what is given.
Poetry, story, film, art, science, and open questions create room for original thinking and meaningful solutions.
Notice what is alive.
Reflection strengthens self-awareness, insight, agency, and the capacity to make sense of experience.
Turn growth into contribution.
Learning becomes generative when people feel they belong and can carry what they discover into classrooms, families, and communities.
The roots connect the outcomes.
Most organizations address a single outcome. Pseads works with the underlying human capacities that connect them.
Story → Opening → Expression
We begin with story, create an opening for inquiry, and end with personal reflection or creative expression that belongs to the learner.
WHERE PSEADS BEGAN
A shared love of learning became a practice.
Matthew Davis and Elizabeth Miller first worked together through the Worldview Literacy Project at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Their shared curiosity crossed education, psychology, science, social justice, healing, ecology, and the conditions that help people come alive as learners.
Pseads was founded in 2013 as a nonprofit and hub for building community and transforming the experience of learning. The work has continued to evolve, but the center has remained remarkably consistent: honor the wisdom already present in people, create conditions where it can emerge, and help that capacity move outward into the world.
Worldview Literacy Project
Early interdisciplinary work integrated science, psychology, reflection, and civic engagement across students, educators, healthcare, and professional communities.
Pseads is founded
Matthew Davis and Elizabeth Miller establish Pseads as a nonprofit dedicated to learning, community, youth voice, and human capacity.
Hope on the Rize + Horizon Films
Classroom learning and film become two connected pathways for moving reflection, voice, and creative expression into the real world.
Light Fellowship
A sustained youth leadership pathway expands the work beyond individual classroom experiences into original projects, mentorship, and community contribution.
Exhale + Living Wisdom Collective
Pseads grows further into educator development and intergenerational learning, tending the larger ecosystem that surrounds young people.
From classrooms to communities
The next chapter focuses on codification, broader access, enduring partnerships, and a lasting ecosystem of human capacity.
The people at the beginning.
Matthew Davis, PhD
Educational innovator, teacher, and operations leader focused on learning, human potential, ecology, and building bridges across communities.
Matthew is a leading educational innovator and operations specialist with over 25 years of experience teaching and leading large-scale initiatives to help individuals and organizations move from concepts and systems to deliverables, with innovative methods for building bridges between diverse communities.
This work is built on an additional twenty years of living and cultivating relationships abroad, and more than a decade of focused scholarship into qualitative worldviews, and creating the conditions for optimal learning, health, social change, and environmental justice.
His home as a child moved around the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf with his parents who were teachers, and classrooms became Matthew’s constant home. He has spent 25 years teaching composition, literature and critical (creative) thinking at many levels, from colleges to juvenile detention centers and corporations, and creates lessons about the activation of innate potential and the inner journey of living in the natural world, integrating ecology, design and contemplative practice.
Elizabeth Miller, PhD
Educator, program designer, writer, and organizational leader with more than two decades of work across learning, community, and youth development.
Elizabeth is an educator, program designer, and organizational leader with over 20 years of experience developing and implementing innovative educational and community-based programs. In addition to Pseads, she teaches Career Development at the college level and is deeply committed to helping young people identify their direction and activate their potential through applied learning experiences.
Over the course of her career, Elizabeth has held strategic and leadership roles across nonprofit and educational sectors working with organizations including Milkweed Editions, the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Children for Change, Growing a Global Heart, and the Redford Stories Project. She has designed and led interdisciplinary programs that integrate academic learning, social-emotional development, and real-world skill building, preparing students for meaningful academic, career, and civic pathways.
Her work is grounded in two decades of research and professional experience spanning educational design, evaluation science, contemplative studies, ecology, and emerging insights from neurocardiology and human development. She specializes in designing more life-giving approaches to learning, assessment, and program development that foster engagement, agency, and long-term success.
Elizabeth has collaborated with schools, universities, businesses, and national partners – including an Apollo astronaut – to explore the interplay of perception, creativity, and transformative learning. She is a writer and editor, co-creator of Pseads’ core program models, and founder of the Lambert Light Fellowship, which supports young people in developing leadership, purpose, and pre-vocational skills through organic inquiry, narrative development, and community-based projects.
A collective by design.
Educators, program builders, researchers, artists, strategists, and community connectors bring different forms of knowledge into one shared practice.
Penny Lane Case
HEAD OF DEVELOPMENTFounder, strategist, writer, and musician bringing creative vision, disciplined execution, and a deep commitment to human connection into Pseads’ development and growth.
Penny Lane is a founder, strategist, writer, and musician whose work brings together creative vision, disciplined execution, and a deep commitment to human connection. At Pseads, she leads the development of scalable systems and intentional partnerships that enable this work with children, educators, elders, and communities to deepen and expand.
Before joining Pseads, Penny Lane founded and led a nationally recognized cleantech company built to support the waste industry. Over three and a half years, she advanced distinct technology, waste infrastructure, and safety advocacy while securing private investment, public grants, and patent protection, building relationships with global industry leaders, public agencies, and policymakers. She has spoken at national conferences, universities, government organizations, and environmental forums, and is grateful to migrate her voice into Pseads’ heart-centered work.
Raised across Sonoma County and New Orleans in multigenerational households of educators, caretakers, and creators, Penny Lane developed an enduring reverence for children, elders, poetry, nature, music, and above all, the limitless human spirit. A lifelong poet, singer, and songwriter, she believes that the heart gives birth to bold ideas, and dreams come to life through intention and conviction.
Jolie Jacobs Brandt
MANAGER OF PROGRAMS AND PARTNERSHIPSA relationship-centered leader supporting Fellows, mentorship, program implementation, and community connection.
Jolie manages the Light Fellowship and oversees day-to-day implementation, supporting students as they design and carry out projects while building communication, organization, accountability, and collaboration.
She brings more than 20 years of experience supporting public-school administrators and school communities, guided by equity, inclusion, deep listening, and the belief that every person can grow into their fullest potential. She holds a BA in Psychology with a minor in Dance and brings a lifelong relationship with the arts into her work.
Raised in Marin County in a family with a strong legacy of social activism, Jolie is also studying Intuition Medicine® and integrates holistic perspectives into youth development, personal growth, and community connection.
Lauren Conrow
URBANIST, ACTIVIST, AND SCHOLARA former Pseads student whose work now spans youth leadership, community development, resilience, and global urban practice.
Lauren first learned and worked with Pseads as a high-school student, an experience that helped shape her commitment to youth voice, collaboration, and community-centered development.
Her career has crossed four continents and six countries. She has supported youth leadership through the USAID-funded Blue Pacific Youth Initiative and previously served as a U.S. Peace Corps Community Economic Development Facilitator in an Indigenous Fijian village, supporting women’s economic empowerment and locally owned development.
Lauren is a Master’s candidate in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford, researching the role of social capital in community resilience. She has also worked with UN-Habitat in Nairobi and continues to build spaces for interconnection among people, place, and planet.
Belvie Rooks
STRATEGIC ADVISOR, COMMUNITY BUILDINGEssayist, educator, social advocate, and visionary mentor connecting human rights, environmental care, and intergenerational community.
Belvie’s pioneering work connects social healing, environmental restoration, education, and community-building. Her lifelong commitment to human and civil rights was shaped early, including by an encounter with Martin Luther King, Jr. as a teenager.
During the anti-apartheid era she served in national leadership, traveled throughout Africa, monitored elections during South Africa’s transition to majority rule, and attended Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. She has taught at SUNY College of Social Justice, Holy Names University, and Naropa University.
Belvie created Hey Listen Up! and ConverZations That Matter, co-founded Growing a Global Heart with Dedan Gills, and has served organizations including Bioneers, the Ella Baker Center, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Her mentorship continues to shape Pseads’ approach to youth voice, intergenerational learning, and community.
Zach Sovereign
EDUCATOR AND PROGRAM ASSOCIATEEducator, poet, movement teacher, and program builder bringing science, design, play, and care for the Earth into Pseads classrooms.
Zach has taught with Pseads for six years, working weekly in K–8 classrooms. His interests in science, design, movement arts, and sustainable development shape a highly curious and imaginative approach to teaching.
He also teaches gymnastics and parkour and brings that same interest in movement, rhythm, and discovery into learning. As a poet, Zach is known within Pseads for “Listening Poems” that weave many voices into communal expressions of hope and possibility.
He contributes to new programs and media while continually looking for practical and creative ways to care for people and the planet.
Ali Goldner Troy
DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANTCoach, consultant, and former communications executive helping connect organizational growth with human transformation.
Ali brings more than 18 years of integrated communications and marketing experience, including consumer public relations, corporate reputation, employee engagement, partnerships, influencer work, and social media strategy.
Her career has included leadership across major national and global brands. A growing interest in people rather than brands led her toward employee experience and professional coaching, where she focused more directly on personal and organizational transformation.
At Pseads, Ali brings a holistic strategic lens to development, relationship-building, and the work of helping organizations grow from the inside out.
Richard Wormstall, PhD (abd)
EDUCATOR AND LIVING WISDOM PROJECT FELLOWEducator, urban cosmologist, guitarist, composer, and facilitator exploring music, learning, healing, and shared humanity.
Richard has taught and facilitated learning experiences for people from elementary-school age through older adulthood. He previously worked in communications at Meridian University and with admissions at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
A guitarist and composer for more than 25 years, his music moves through Spanish, Middle Eastern, jazz, flamenco, blues, and hip hop traditions. He founded Zen Guitar in Marin County and teaches students of many ages.
His research and professional practice explore music, learning, healing, cosmology, connectivity, and shared humanity. Richard has collaborated with Pseads’ founders and mentors for more than a decade and contributes to the Living Wisdom work.
Integrity and family are part of the method.
Dedan Gills, Belvie Rooks, and Susan Lambert helped Pseads understand that wisdom can be cultivated across generations, that creativity can humanize a room, and that a life itself can become an invitation to learn.
Dedan Gills
Dedan Gills modeled a radical commitment to learning, human dignity, music, poetry, ecology, and the capacity of ordinary relationships to create lasting change.
Belvie Rooks
Belvie Rooks is an educator, essayist, civil-rights advocate, and community-builder whose work continues to weave generations, conversations, social care, and environmental healing together with extraordinary heart.
Susan Lambert
Susan Lambert was a photographer, writer, artist, educator, and source of the seed gift that inspired the Fellowship. Susan lived with a commitment to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and filled the world around her with beauty, curiosity, and joy.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Stewardship across education, creativity, business, and community.
Dedan GillsFounding Board Member · In Memoriam
Educator, poet, social advocate, pioneer of Green Recovery, and a beloved mentor whose life and work continue to shape the heart of Pseads.
Steve UzzellTreasurer · Chief Hope Officer
Photographer, speaker, creative problem-solving educator, and long-time champion of imagination, open roads, and original thinking.
Chris FongBoard Member
Experienced executive and strategist whose career spans venture-backed startups, global technology, investment banking, private equity, music, and social impact.
Jelani RooksBoard Member
Three-time Emmy Award-winning producer whose work in sports media centers authentic storytelling, cultural connection, and conversation.
Paul Germeraad, PhDBoard Member
Innovation and intellectual-assets strategist, author, advisor, educator, and executive with decades of experience across science, technology, and organizational leadership.
William Woods, MABoard Member
Educator and talent-development professional with experience in nonprofit management, youth leadership, college counseling, curriculum, and organizational culture.
Richard “Rich” MeyerBoard Member · In Memoriam
Entrepreneur, philanthropist, writer, and early champion of the work that grew into Pseads, remembered for curiosity, care, generosity, and commitment.
MORE ABOUT PSEADS