About Creative Education Foundation

Beth is a 20+ year nonprofit leader who is passionate about history, education, leadership, and creativity.  As the Executive Director of the Creative Education Foundation (CEF), she has grown and professionalized all contributed and earned revenue streams including the development Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Professional Development training for public school educators and administrators.  Beth and the CEF team are successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and have developed new virtual programs, which have expanded the CEF audience.  Currently, Beth is exploring collaborative partnerships with The Illumination Project, the Center for Policing Equity, and various national Invention Conventions. 

Beth taught writing at Trinity College for 10 years, and who served as Writing Fellow at Quinnipiac University where she taught and assisted with writing program curriculum design. Beth earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies (2000) and her M.A. in American Studies (2003) at Trinity College, graduating with distinction for both degrees; she was also inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.  For her scholarship and community service, Beth received the Ann Petry Book Prize in American Studies, the D.G. Brinton Thompson Prize in United States History, the Samuel S. Fishzohn Award for Civil Rights and Community Service, the Elma H. Martin Book Prize for Student Leadership, and the Tyler Award for Interdisciplinary Studies. 

Beth currently serves as a Trustee of the Ahearn Family Foundation, and recently completed her tenure as a member of the Trinity College National Alumni Association Executive Committee. In 2005, Beth was hired to write “A Life-Giving Spirit:” 75 Years at the Bushnell, which was a history of The Bushnell Memorial Theater in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2017, Beth received an honorary PhD in Arts and Humane Letters from Southern New Hampshire University for her academic and professional achievements.  Her award-winning Senior Seminar Thesis, “Challenging Race and Gender Boundaries in Antebellum America,” about Prudence Crandall was adapted as the play, “An Education in Prudence,” produced by the Open Theater Project in Boston, MA in February 2018.    And, in 2019, Beth was recognized by her alma mater as one of the “50 for the next 50 Years,” which celebrated Trinity’s 50^th anniversary of co-education by honoring 50 professors, alumni, and students as Trinity’s current and future women leaders.

Jamie is the Office Manager and Bookkeeper at the CEF office in Scituate, MA. Her career prior to CEF has been doing bookkeeping for local businesses. Jamie and her husband have two children and live in Marshfield, MA. She is also an avid runner and has completed several marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2008 and 2015.

Beth holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Buffalo in History with a minor in Dance, a Social Studies Certification in Education from Buffalo State, and a Masters of Science in Creative Studies from Buffalo State, has completed a three-year Certified Humor Professional program from the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor and is in the middle of her Masters of Business Administration degree from D’Youville College. Beth has a passion for improv and enjoys studying it at Buffalo ComedySportz and Toronto’s Second City. From teaching at a middle school to adjuncting at a few of the local colleges, her long career in the education world has taught her the value of what dedicated faculty and staff bring to a student’s life. She combines this knowledge with excitement for deliberative problem solving to train people worldwide through the Creative Education Foundation.

Jane has over 25 years of experience in developing and delivering educational sessions, personal and professional development workshops, and training curriculum. Much of this experience covers her two decades in health education leadership, with 15 of these years in college health promotion and peer education training.

For the past decade, she has worked as a Creative Change Facilitator. Her passion is to help individuals, teams, and organizations arrive at creative solutions to the challenging and ambiguous problems they face, and to do so through improvisational mindsets. Jane’s perspective is greatly shaped by 20 years as a professional improv comedy performer.  She is currently a member of ComedySportz Buffalo and Twisted Sister Act.

Jane holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Social Work from Ithaca College, a Master of Arts in Health Arts and Sciences from Goddard College, and a Graduate Certificate of Advanced Study in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at SUNY Buffalo State. She is certified as a Foursight® facilitator, a facilitator of Lego® Serious Play® Methods & Materials, and a Laugha-Yoga leader. In addition to working with nonprofit organizations, colleges, community organizations, and businesses, she has been honored to deliver keynote presentations and lead interactive workshops at numerous conferences and events.

Roseanne is a true creative and entrepreneur.  For over 2 decades she has worked to combine her love of creative and business.  She has an eye for detail and a rich understanding of technology.  Bootstrapping multiple businesses after graduating from Ringling College of Art and Design, she has provided creative services to virtually every industry – completing or overseeing nearly every type of graphic design or online/web-based project.

Working for Creative Education Foundation, Roseanne brings her skills to provide creative and expertise to market the Florida Creativity Conference. 

Tricia became passionate about the creative process her senior year of high school and has been researching creativity and teaching corporate, educational, and individual clients how to develop and apply creative and innovative techniques ever since. Through her Philadelphia-based consulting business, The Idea Shop, Tricia helps her clients establish a creative culture through individual and corporate coaching, seminars, classes, and facilitating ideation sessions.

She joined the Disney Company in 2001 and is currently leadership development manager at the Disney University, a role in which she works with executives to assess and then design the right learning solution to drive leadership success and optimize business. Tricia also provides consultation to various clients within the company to help them fully tap their creative expertise. Through her research and experience, Tricia has explored the often-stormy relationship between the psychological fundamentals of creativity and the practical components of innovation with their direct applications in business, the arts, and sciences. Tricia has a Masters in human resources from Villanova University in and a doctorate in interdisciplinary leadership from Creighton University where her dissertation focused on collaboration and leadership creative problem solving preferences. Tricia has authored and co-authored a number of publications over the years, most recently a chapter in Emerald Publishing’s “Grassroots Leadership and the Arts for Social Change” entitled Benevolent Subversion: Graffiti, Street Art, and the Emergence of the Anonymous Leader.

Kirk Young serves as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Jamestown Community College, a position he has held since 2014. Prior to joining JCC, Kirk worked for ten years at Utah Valley University, a large regional university in Utah. Throughout his years working in higher education, he has worked in enrollment, fundraising, and marketing, as well as serving for several years as the director of the Center for the Advancement of Leadership at UVU. Prior to his career in higher education, Kirk worked in sales and management in private industry where much of his work focused on employee development and engagement.

Kirk holds a BA in psychology from Utah Valley University, an MS in sociology from Brigham Young University, and a Ph.D. in leadership studies from Gonzaga University. His master’s studies focused on the social impacts of large-scale mega events, particularly the 2002 Winter Olympics. His doctoral studies focused on the 360-degree assessment as a leadership development tool. His other areas of expertise include transformational leadership, appreciative inquiry, servant-leadership, leadership and creativity, and strengths-based leadership. Kirk is a certified strengths coach with the Gallup organization, and spends some of his time consulting with individuals and teams on strengths-based performance and leadership solutions.

Kirk is the founder of 221b Performance Solutions, a leadership and organizational development firm that works closely with organizations across the country to assess performance, design solutions, and implement strategies for addressing a variety of challenges. In this capacity, Kirk is responsible for helping individuals, teams, and organizations identify and achieve their potential.

Kirk currently lives in Lakewood, NY with his wife, Katie, and their three children.

Mary Wisenski is a CPA and a Director of Assurance & Advisory Services for Fiondella, Milone and LaSaracina LLP (FML). She has more than 17 years of public accounting experience across a variety of industries including manufacturing, bio-technology, software, and consumer goods. She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and joined FML in 2004. Mary is responsible for supervising and managing financial statement audits both under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as well as employee benefit plan audits, and consulting engagements related to Sarbanes-Oxley initiatives for publicly- traded companies. In addition, Mary provides a variety of consulting services to both public and private clients focusing on internal audit services and her diverse industry experience ranges from startup businesses to large multi-national corporations. Her internal control experience includes the identification of significant accounts, the detection of prevent and detect controls within significant processes, and the development and execution of testing strategies for internal control environments. In addition, Mary has significant experience identifying control weaknesses and assisting in the development of process improvement opportunities within an organization’s control environment. Mary’s experience includes performing such work on Connecticut Water Service, Inc., Arvinas, Inc. Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc., Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., Delcath Systems, Inc., The Eastern Company, and American Bank Note Holographics, Inc., to name a few.

Mary has extensive professional and volunteer experience working with nonprofits. She performed audits for Theater Works, Inc. in Hartford, CT, as well as The Justice Education Center, Inc.. She served on the Board and was the former Treasurer and Co-Chair of Connectikds, Inc., a tutoring and mentoring organization also in Hartford. Mary is interested in CEF’s mission and work as creativity and critical thinking and sees these as critical life skills for one’s career and in life in general. She sees being able to deal with a situation and problem solve using creative thinking is the key to independence and confidence. Though Mary resides in Connecticut, her roots are in Buffalo, NY and she is there several times a year visiting family. She is excited about CEF’s Buffalo connections.

Greg is serial entrepreneur, blazing trails for the future. By creating companies that produce innovative solutions for social and environmental issues, he has recently set new standards in several industries. Attributing his continued success to the creative mindset, Greg was also recognized in the 2018 class of 30 under 30 in his hometown of Buffalo, NY.

Beyond his companies, Greg possesses a unique skill set and approach life which both fuel his passion to help others achieve their goals and deliberately improve the world we live in. He had his first volunteer experience as a People to People Student Ambassador. Greg’s travel included trips to New Zealand and Australia in order to promote peace among cultures. After his first trip to CPSI in 2015, he was instantly hooked and he seeks to help bring deliberate creativity into the lives of others after seeing how the process can affect one’s personal and professional life in such a profound manner.

Judy currently serves as Director, Design Thinking Strategy as part of an FCB Health team that uses Creative Problem Solving and Human Centered Design to spark breakthrough thinking and insight-led innovation.  She designs, facilitates, and manages group innovative thinking and insight sessions across a range of brand and organizational needs. Previously, Judy was principal of CBA Full Gallop, an insights and innovation firm that provided qualitative research and facilitation to major manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, Rx, OTC and medical devices. 

She also served the Joint Special Operations University’s Center Design and Innovation as Adjunct Professor of Creative Problem Solving where she had the honor of introducing elite military operatives to the body of knowledge she first encountered at CPSI in 2014. Additionally, she had the pleasure of working as an instructor for the LUMA Institute supporting client teams in developing their ability to apply LUMA’s approach to innovation and problem solving.

Judy holds a MS in Creativity and Change Leadership from the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State and a BA in Theater Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Mallory Combemale is a facilitator, entrepreneur and designer of transformative experiences. She is currently a Co-Founder of Inheritance Project, where she focuses on leading holistic inclusion, leadership development and culture transformation programs for a wide variety of organizations.

Mallory also guides personal healing and transformation, specializing in breathwork, meditation, and trauma-informed approaches to healing. Through Breath Connection, she empowers individuals with scientifically supported breath practices to improve leadership skills such as emotional intelligence, creativity, collaboration and resilience.

A Singaporean-French-American citizen raised in London, Mallory has always been fascinated with identity and facilitating cross-cultural understanding. She is passionate about empowering leaders with the skills and self-awareness to lead in a diverse, global and uncertain future. Creative problem solving skills are an essential part of this and she is inspired by helping CEF further its educational mission.

Katie Garry is a Creative Director at Grey Midwest. During her 15+ year creative advertising career — in agencies and as an entrepreneur — she’s worked with the likes of small-town startups to Fortune 500s in beauty, CPG, fintech, food and beverage, hospitality, among others. 

Katie brings concepts from CPS, Design Thinking and Improv into her work to develop robust visual and verbal storytelling that best communicates the heart of a brand while connecting with the heart and mind of the consumer.

Katie’s perspective to work is through play. She plays with ideas, experiences and challenges until ah-has are uncovered and brains are tuckered out. Katie is someone who grabs attention, but never steals the show. She makes everyone feel seen, amplifies the voices of her team, and serves as a fountain of resources and creativity, asking for nothing in return but to celebrate in the collective success. 

Katie holds an MA in Journalism from the University of Memphis and a dual-BA in Journalism and Organizational Communication from Ohio Northern University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Northern Review and as President of the Delta Zeta sorority. ONU is also where she met her husband, Ryan. They have three young daughters—two who are theatre-minded elementary-schoolers and one toddler who runs the show.  

Nicole Haddad believes wholeheartedly in the power of creativity to fuel innovative thinking. She believes that the key to a thriving culture is confident, courageous individuals and teams who speak up and take risks to reimagine what is possible.

She is the founder of ArtWorks, where she uses creativity to transform the most disengaged, disconnected and burned-out groups into passionate, energetic teams who can tackle their most pressing business challenges with confidence.

As a creative leadership coach and team development facilitator, Haddad helps organizations build thriving cultures through programs that focus on creativity & innovation, cultivating sustainable collaboration, transformative team development, and creative leadership, which help professionals approach problem-solving with a creative mindset so that bigger and better solutions emerge to produce breakthrough results.

Haddad brings over 15 years of experience in advertising, marketing, and creative problem-solving training to students in the form of highly engaging and impactful workshop-style sessions where students learn through purposeful play in a space that encourages tinkering, experimenting, asking thoughtful questions and sharing unique perspectives.

Haddad earned her MBA in marketing and management from SMU. She is a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator and Foursight innovative problem-solving trainer.

Erika is a Mexican seasoned sales professional in the technology business for education, corporate and government with 17 years of expertise working with the leaders of the market on Learning Management Systems: Blackboard and D2L. A social person who builds rapport and connects with prospects and clients in a way that impact results when doing business in Latin America, where people buy from people.

Creative problem solver by nature, in the quest of transforming and building awareness on accessibility in all industries from a vision of the world at 4 feet. A quick thinker, embraces the unexpected and likes being challenged. Taking action, getting results and generating enthusiasm are her drivers in all the things she does.

Known by two talents: singing and finding good food.

Liz Monroe-Cook has been a leader at CPSI since 1991. She is a consulting psychologist who began her work as a clinician, but transferred to organizational applications through a qualitative research position at D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. She trained moderators at the RIVA Training Institute, and was a frequent presenter and board member at the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QCRA).

Liz has led projects with varied clients including the US Government, corporations, non-profits, professional associations, and institutions of higher learning. She has extensive experience in strategic planning, group idea generation, leadership development, team development, analysis and planning work, and retreats. Her expertise includes an array of deliberate creativity approaches, polarity thinking, communication and relationship skills, emotional intelligence, and group facilitation.

Liz has led many workshops at CPSI, MindCamp Canada, MindCamp Chile, Florida Creativity Weekend, and the Creativity European Association (CREA). In 2008, Liz received the CEF Distinguished Leader Award, and in 2014 the CEF Leadership Service & Commitment Award. She was a Fire and Police Commissioner for six years in the Village of Oak Park, Illinois and served more than four years on the board of directors for the Geneva Foundation, a transitional living and development program for youth 16 to 19. She is currently a Mission Steward for Child’s World America.

At Michigan State University, Liz studied music, history and psychology for her BA in humanities. She earned an MA in counseling and Ph.D. in counseling psychology, also from MSU. She lives in Oak Park (Chicago area) with her husband, Dale, a fellow psychologist. They have two adult children, Brenna and Jonathan.

Frank is the Founder and President of Unleash Your Mind Consulting, an independent consulting firm focused on creative leadership and innovation since 1990. Frank is an executive consultant to CEO’s and Senior Management teams. Organizations hire Frank to develop strategies that drive results through innovation. He facilitates the creation of long-range strategic plans. Frank also counsels executives on their presentation skills and co-creates presentations with them.

Frank attended his first CPSI in 1984 and it changed his life and career. He has served as a CPSI leader since 1989. He served as an adjunct instructor for the Center for Creative Leadership and as an adjunct professor for George Fox University teaching “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.” He also taught “The Creative Manager” course at Motorola University. Frank founded One Ball One Village, a nonprofit organization which brings remote villages throughout the world together through building community centers with clean water, sports fields and play supplies.

Frank applies the same creativity, strategic planning and goal achievement processes to his personal life through a passion for riding motorcycles and extreme adventure travel. A few major accomplishments include: winning the Baja 1000 on a motorcycle, racing a sled team in the Iditarod and completing an Antarctic expedition with Cornell University and National Geographic. He always has a new adventure in the works.

Frank lives in Tampa, Florida with his two children and wife Cherri who he met at CPSI in 1999. She also serves as a CPSI leader and is the Head of Growth and Innovation for Seed Strategy.

Melissa St. Clair is the Head of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity (ID&E) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for Nuveen, a global investment manager. Melissa has end-to-end responsibility for the strategic planning, delivery, execution and measurement of Nuveen’s International ID&E programming and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts in 22 countries across Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Prior to her role at Nuveen, Melissa served as Vice President at TIAA (Nuveen’s parent company), leading the firm’s Inclusion Programming and Innovation and Diversity Strategies team. Prior to her career in ID&E, Melissa managed TIAA’s Contingent Worker Program at TIAA and led the firm’s award-winning and best-in-class Supplier Diversity Program.

Melissa has more than 17 years of experience in communications, staffing and procurement, and diversity-related fields in the financial services industry.

Ms. St. Clair received a bachelor of business administration (B.B.A) in International Business with a French Minor from Texas Tech University.  Melissa serves on the Board of Trustees for the Creative Education Foundation, and the Board of The Sundara Fund, a non-profit whose mission is to empower women and eradicate health and hygiene disparities across the globe. She also co-founded Sundara’s Rise 100 which provides mentorship, seed funding and resources to female entrepreneurs that are building sustainable businesses in low to middle income countries.  Melissa is a founding member of the Women’s Council at Make-A-Wish Metro NY, as well as a wish granter to children with life threatening medical conditions. From 2017-2020, she also served on the steering committee at Lincoln Center Kids which develops musical and artistic performances for neurodiverse audiences, including children with autism and other disabilities.

Melissa is a recipient of the 2020 Women’s eNews “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” award and a Pride Global “Trailblazing Women” honoree. She is married with two children and resides in London.

Alexandra graduated Cornell University and pursued an MBA in Consumer Behavior from ESADE Barcelona. She lived in NY, Spain and South Africa and traveled to over 40 countries before moving back to Puerto Rico to work in Consumer Research, Strategic Planning and Advertising for over 15 years.

Working largely with Marketing Departments, Alexandra uses her creative multicultural background to bring the unconventional thinking, leadership and creativity that are always at the core of successful brands. As a Researcher, her job is to analyze and dissect issues from every angle to unearth the barriers the strategy needs to solve. As a Communication/Advertising Strategist, her job is to conceptualize all the brand and consumer knowledge and synthetize it in a way that inspires Creativity, while aligning the consumer, the culture, and the brand seamlessly. This ability was first prized in 2013 when along with the LATAM Regional Strategist they brought Puerto Rico’s first Cannes Grand Prix for Creative Strategy and a Jay Chiat Strategic Excellence Award.

Alexandra is all about creativity with a purpose. This has given her a chance to exercise both her analytical and creative brains. She loves the mental process behind Creative Problem Solving and is also a Design Thinking Practitioner.

Alexandra currently lives in her beloved Puerto Rico where she founded Lateral Strategy, a research, branding and strategy studio that serves clients in Latin America and other Caribbean islands. Despite all the accolades, she is often referred to as Ignacio’s or Julieta’s mom a title she holds with great pride.

Alex is obsessed with helping student entrepreneurs find their confidence to take the plunge and help them get to product-market fit. He currently works within Amazon Web Services Startups to help university entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Alex has founded startups in biotech, media, mobile gaming, and social networking, one of which was funded by Y Combinator, and he served as Head of Product for Zealot Interactive. Alex spent most of his career designing and directing student entrepreneurship programming that 4x’d the rate of viable high-growth entrepreneurs at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, using research-backed and relationship-based approaches. Alex has coached thousands of student entrepreneurs 1-on-1 and in workshop formats internationally, the most popular of which has been “Strangers to Best Friends in 45 Minutes” that was first tested at CPSI 2017.

In addition to program design and individual coaching, Alex teaches classes in creativity and entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia. Most recently, he was a full-time faculty member in the McIntire School of Commerce teaching multiple sections of ENTP 1010: Introduction to Entrepreneurship. Before that, he designed and taught STS 3580: Creativity for Invention to undergraduate engineering students based on the rich educational concepts promoted by the Creative Education Foundation, and taught STS 4580/STS 5500: De-Risking Entrepreneurship, a course for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students.

His published work includes “Exploration of Discriminant Validity in Divergent Thinking Tasks: A Meta-Analysis” which explored improvements to the classical ways of measuring creativity, “Harnessing Deliberate Creativity” which was a technical note for business school professors to offer to their MBA students, “Aspiring Entrepreneurs Should Not Major in Entrepreneurship” which made the case for students to supplement with entrepreneurship classes rather than concentrate, and “The Social Mechanism of Supporting Entrepreneurial Projects Beyond the Classroom” which explored using community of practice as the most effective way to endow entrepreneurial mindset.

Alex received his MBA as well as his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and is on a hiatus from work toward the M.S. in Creativity and Change Leadership at Buffalo State University.  

Sid Parnes is professor emeritus and founding director of the Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College (1967). Sid met the CEF Founder, Alex Osborn, at the very first CPSI and took the conference content and morphed it into a “How to” conference, piloting this idea in his Creative Retailing Conference in 1956 at the University of Pittsburgh. Impressed with his initiative, Alex recruited Sid to work with him and evolve the model shortly thereafter.

From 1967 to 1984 Sid served as President of the Creative Education Foundation. He was the premier researcher on the development of creative behavior, so much so that he decided to launch The Journal of Creative Behavior (in ’67); the longest running and foremost academic journal dedicated to creativity in the world. He is responsible for assembling the most comprehensive library on creativity with more than 2,400 volumes. Throughout his career, Sid has emphasized two key principles on deliberate creativity. First, creativity is the result of a balance between divergent and convergent thinking and second; everyone can be taught to apply creative behavior in their personal and professional lives.