Isa Kaftal Zimmerman

Isa Kaftal Zimmerman, Ed.D., is currently the principal of IKZ Advisors, an educational consulting firm serving educators and stakeholders in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. She has been a superintendent of schools, a high school principal and assistant principal, a junior-high-school teacher, and both division director of the Technology in Education Program and associate professor at Lesley University. As a principal and superintendent, she pioneered technology in schools for instruction and productivity in Massachusetts and started the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Technology Task Force. She was also chair of the Massachusetts Commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Educational Technology Advisory Council (ETAC) for two terms. She was Senior Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute and the University of Massachusetts President’s Office until the spring of 2009. In this capacity she planned and organized the STEM annual Summit from 2006 to 2008, created and monitored the attendant website, led the development of a state STEM plan outline, and networked stakeholders. She also oversaw the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI) K–12 program.

She was appointed to the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council in January 2010 and to its Operation Board in January 2011. She is the co-editor and contributor to two books published by the Massachusetts affiliate of ASCD (Beyond Technology: Learning With The Wired Curriculum and Teaching: A Career, A Profession) and has a chapter in Technology In Its Place: Successful Technology Infusion in Schools. She continues to write about leadership, technology, and STEM in both published journals and online.