Image of Verna Lalbeharie

Verna Lalbeharie

Executive Director, EdTech Hub

Verna Lalbeharie brings more than 25 years of experience in strategic leadership and business development in education technology, personalized learning, research, and technical assistance. She has focused her career on evidence and advancement of education technology to create a more equitable future for all students.

Ms. Lalbeharie is a native of South Africa and based in North Carolina in the U.S. As executive director of the EdTech Hub, she leads the Hub in advancing its mission to empower edtech decisions using rigorous evidence. In addition, Ms. Lalbeharie works closely with the EdTech Hub’s partners and donors and represents the Hub externally.

Previously, Ms. Lalbeharie served as the managing director for personalized learning at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) where she guided state and local departments of education in consideration and implementation of personalized learning and EdTech initiatives. She led business development for AIR’s portfolio of research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects. She also served as the co-chair of a national steering committee for the EdTech Genome project, a research network creating a framework for supporting informed EdTech purchasing decisions based on evidence.

Prior to AIR, Ms. Lalbeharie’s positions included a pivotal role as the North Carolina state director of digital teaching and learning where she led implementation of the digital learning initiative and the development of digital learning competencies for teachers and administrators. She also provided strategic vision and leadership for North Carolina’s enterprise suite of EdTech platforms and resources aligned to curriculum and pedagogy.

As senior program director at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University, Ms. Lalbeharie engaged educators at all levels in innovative models of professional learning and strategic planning to support teaching and learning with technology.

Her early career was spent on initiatives and research efforts to advance student success with a focus on secondary and postsecondary education reform. In an R&D capacity in non-profits for 13 years, Ms. Lalbeharie worked on complex, large-scale, national, multi-component, multi-partner, and multi-year education initiatives.

Ms. Lalbeharie holds a BA from Smith College and a Master of Education from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

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