STEAMe Welcomes STEM Leader Kelli A. Easterly to Drive Community Based Workforce Innovation

Strategic hire brings expertise in education, business transformation, and systems building to scale cross-community infrastructure and power pathways to prosperity

CHICAGO, June 23, 2025 – STEAMe, the digital and data infrastructure revolutionizing cross-community workforce development, has hired Kelli A. Easterly as Director of Learning. A proven innovator in education, Easterly has led transformative STEM initiatives at Chicago Public Schools—one of the nation’s largest districts. STEAMe will harness her expertise to scale its innovative, cross-community platform, ensuring its products are grounded in the real world needs of learners, employers, and workforce intermediaries.

“Kelli brings the systems thinking and hands-on experience we need in this moment of rapid industry evolution,” said Rachel Kohler, Chief Executive Officer of STEAMe. “Her proven leadership in large-scale change, talent for building trust across communities, and deep understanding of how skills translate into workforce readiness will be invaluable as STEAMe delivers solutions that are practical, sustainable, and transformative.”

Easterly, former Executive Director of STEM at Chicago Public Schools (CPS), brings nearly two decades of experience aligning learning ecosystems with community needs. Ten years ago, she launched an initiative at CPS to refocus 12 elementary schools and 5 high schools around STEM education. Since then, she has led the charge to onboard 34 more schools, establishing innovative K-12 learning pathways that now serve over 22,000 students districtwide. Under her leadership, CPS established a Virtual Academy to expand access to STEM courses for medically fragile and underrepresented students. She also helped broker an innovative partnership with Northwestern University to launch a digital platform that gives families clear visibility of available STEM learning pathways and local opportunities, empowering them to make more informed decisions about their children’s education.

“I’m excited to join the incredible team at STEAMe and contribute to its bold mission of transformation. Together, we can raise the bar for what’s possible in workforce development — building systems that align learning with opportunity, are driven by community voice, and deliver measurable impact,”

Easterly joins STEAMe’s growing team of changemakers committed to delivering intelligent, scalable solutions that connect learners, employers, and educators in powerful new ways. Earlier this year, STEAMe co-founder and Chief Systems Officer Nichole Pinkard, PhD, was elected to the National Academy of Education (NAEd), an organization that advances research to inform education-related policy and practice. 

About STEAMe

STEAMe powers workforce development pathways to grow upward mobility, prosperity, and resilience across communities. STEAMe’s digital and data platform unites workforce development partners to efficiently scale, measure impact, and reduce stopouts — to get the right person to the right training and the right job, at the right time. Learn more at steame.com and follow STEAMe on LinkedIn for updates.

Media Contact

Patty Keiler,
patty@collaborate.health,
312-550-5394