I have had the good fortune of working closely with Dr. Chloe Kannan across sectors, contexts, countries, and continents for 7+ years. Each time that we collaborate, I learn a great deal from her professionalism, assets-based approach, and how she potentiates people and systems. As a consultant and advisor, Dr. Kannan brings catalytic knowledge, relational care, and actionable insight to everything she leads, designs, facilitates, and implements. As a consultant, advisor, applied researcher, professional learning facilitator, and culturally responsive curriculum designer, Chloe’s research rigor and methodological acumen, emotional and cultural intelligence, active listening and strategic advising skills are unparalleled in my 25+ years as an organization-systems-community consultant, advisor, learning design architect, and applied researcher. Dr. Kannan designs, leads, and engages in leading-edge research and consulting with diverse communities around the country and the globe, leading participatory research across contexts including Youth Participatory Action research (YPAR), school- and community-based research, systems thinking and emergent design research, developing and implementing mission-focused organizational and workplace learning architectures, designing knowledge ecosystems that index and integrate Indigenous-Western knowledge systems, and building research-practice partnerships to promote practitioner-scholarship and facilitate mission-focused improvement. Dr. Chloe Kannan is the consummate researcher, consultant, and advisor, she leaves every organization, system, leader, and community member exponentially better off than when she arrived and, in this way, embodies the notion of consultant as alchemist.

Dr. Sharon Ravitch, Faculty, Policy, Organizations, Leadership, & Systems Division, Penn Graduate School of Education.