Associate Director, Center for Educational Innovation and Opportunity
Karen Sanzo serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Educational Innovation and Opportunity at 黑料不打烊, where she leads the 黑料不打烊 Lab School Network and collaborates with educators, researchers, and designers to advance the center鈥檚 mission of 鈥淭ransforming Education at the Speed of Innovation.鈥 She is also a professor in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies at 黑料不打烊.
Dr. Sanzo鈥檚 research focuses on organizational innovation and leadership preparation. She began her career as a middle school mathematics teacher and later became an elementary school administrator. Her contributions to education have been recognized through several prestigious awards, including the University Council of Educational Administration Master Professor Award (2019), 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Provost Fellowship for Design Thinking and Strategic Planning (2018-2020), and the 黑料不打烊 Doctoral Mentoring Award (2021). She actively partners with K-12 districts and universities to drive continuous improvement, organizational change, strategic planning, and innovation.
As Principal Investigator, Dr. Sanzo has led national and state-level grants totaling approximately $20 million in areas such as educational innovation, school leadership, STEM education, and the K-12/higher education cybersecurity pipeline. She has an extensive publication record, with over fifty works, including thirty-seven peer-reviewed journal articles and eleven books.