We are a small team of talented professionals with a wide range of skills and experience. We love what we do, and we do it with passion. We look forward to working with you.
Kori Hamilton Biagas
Founder, Principal Consultant
Kori Hamilton Biagas is an educator, connector, truth seeker, master facilitator, and the founder of Just Educators. Kori founded Just Educators out of a deep passion to disrupt social and educational injustice. She specializes in addressing and resolving inequitable policies, practices, and processes in organizations related to racial inequity and social injustice. She uses her expertise to provide support to corporations, nonprofits, schools, districts, and state education agencies across the country as a trainer, thought partner, and advocate for racial equity and social justice.
Kori has a unique and broad perspective addressing inequity; the implications of implicit & explicit bias on organizational culture and climate; organizational transformation from a culturally sustaining lens; and using data to interrupt manifestations of racial injustice and systemic oppression. Building on over 17 years of experience in professional development, instruction, policy, strategic planning, and technical assistance, Kori leverages the power of dialogue to challenge injustice, inequity, bias, and privilege. Meeting people where they are, while disrupting systems, policies, beliefs, and behaviors is core to her approach, and essential to changing hearts, minds, and institutional culture and climate.
Kori was born in Nashville, TN, raised in Los Angeles, CA, and is a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of California, Los Angeles. She uses her experiences to dismantle systems and transform beliefs where racial inequity and social injustice exist. Kori is also the co-host of Pushing Past Polite Podcast with Laura Kassner.
Tirrany Thurmond
Consultant
Tirrany Thurmond is a college administrator, licensed graduate professional counselor, and diversity and inclusion leader with a resume that spans over nearly a decade in large and small organizational settings. Her professional tenure consists of assisting university leadership on matters of diversity and inclusion, creating equitable programs and access for historically underserved populations, and consulting organizations on matters of cultural climate.
As a diversity and inclusion consultant, she uses a multitude of approaches to assist organizations strategically develop and implement diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. Tirrany is an expert in minority recruitment and retention, the creation of welcoming inclusive spaces, and helping leaders mitigate bias in the workplace. She’s a Qualified Administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory, a Safe Zone facilitator, and culturally responsive teaching instructor. Her areas of interest include navigating family challenges, academic concerns, social justice fatigue, leadership issues, Superwoman Syndrome and impostor syndrome, anxiety, and depression.
April Terrell
Consultant
April L. Terrell is the founder of Authentic U, an educational consulting firm that helps adults shape the future by teaching our children to live authentically, with empathy and kindness. She is dedicated to supporting the advancement of social and emotional learning, character development, and positive culture in the school, work and home setting.
April spent ten years’ in Baltimore City Public School System as an Early Childhood educator and Administrator. As an Administrator in City Schools, April was an instructional leader of an Early Learning Center; coached teachers and created professional development for all content areas with a focus on Common Core State Standards, high yield instructional strategies, and pedagogy. Moreover, April spearheaded the construction of Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten curriculum for the school district. April maintains teaching certifications in Early Childhood, Elementary Education, and Special Education.
Kamilah Drummond-Forrestor
Consultant
Kamilah Drummond-Forrester, is a speaker, consultant and workshop presenter on topics of educational equity, anti-racism, self-care and social and emotional learning. She has written about these topics in the Women Change Worlds blog and has several articles in esteemed educational publications such as EdSurge, The 74million, and the Hechinger Report. Most recently, Kamilah was the Director of Open Circle a social and emotional learning program for children in elementary schools. She is a board member of the state social and emotional learning advocacy organization, SEL4MA and a steering committee member of the national SEL Providers Council.
In all of her roles, Kamilah’s passion for social justice and the social and emotional wellbeing of children fuels her commitment to advocating for and educating others about the inextricable connections between social and emotional learning (SEL), social justice and anti-racism. Kamilah is also a trained leader with the National SEED Project where she has led cohorts of colleagues, educators and parents through year-long community building experiences that leverage the power of story-telling, self-reflection and truth-telling to bridge-build and empower.
Laura Kassner
Consultant
Laura Kassner, Ed.D. brings nearly 20 years of experience as an educator, leading dissemination, teacher professional development, technical assistance, and research spanning early childhood through higher education. She has served as a classroom teacher, district and state leader, higher education faculty, and consultant. In every context, Laura takes seriously her responsibility to identify and dismantle racism, and to amplify voices often unheard.
Laura specializes in making complex information accessible to diverse audiences, often leveraging technology and social media tools to disseminate them, including blogs for federal publication, several podcast episodes on early childhood policy. She possesses exceptionally strong interpersonal skills, which she leverages in training and facilitation to democratize meetings and encourage participation, providing opportunity and encouragement to see things from different perspectives.
Additionally, Dr. Kassner has authored numerous technical reports, peer-reviewed research articles on technology tools for reflective practice and video-enhanced peer coaching, a national toolkit for educators on improving kids’ math attitudes and performance. She has extensive experience managing large-scale projects, supporting strategic planning, and sharing evidence-based practices focused on educational equity. She maintains current teacher and superintendent licensure in Virginia.
Elaine Mulligan
Dissemination Consultant
Elaine Mulligan, is an education dissemination specialist who previously served as Dissemination Director for the Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems (DaSy Center), Project Director for the National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY), and Dissemination Lead for the Equity Alliance at Arizona State University. Elaine is an expert in dissemination planning for education projects, website management, and social media. She also served as the Assistant Director for NIUSI-LeadScape, planning and delivering professional learning and culturally responsive coaching to principals of inclusive schools. Prior to her dissemination work, Elaine was a career special educator with classroom experience from preschool through high school.
Elaine has a long history with our founder, beginning with their work together at the Equity Alliance at ASU and continuing through their work at NICHCY. Elaine’s experience in developing professional learning materials and managing dissemination meshes perfectly with Kori’s passion for and experience in providing technical assistance and professional learning around social justice and culturally responsive practices.
Daniela Saucedo
Research Consultant
Daniela Saucedo is an education researcher with extensive experience using quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. She has worked for non-profit research institutions since graduating with a B.S. in Economics from Duke University in 2018. She has expertise in analyzing how systemic educational inequality disproportionately affects students of color and those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. Because of her academic studies, she has a keen ability to investigate how equitable policies and practices in various social systems, such as housing, healthcare, and wealth distribution—in addition to education—can have positive effects on student outcomes.
Daniela is a scholar of culturally sustaining pedagogy, critical race theory, and various other equity frameworks; her work is firmly grounded in these principles. As a first-generation immigrant and a first-generation college student, she brings deep understanding and compassion to her work with students and schools.
Just Educators 