Brandi Kenner

Dr. Brandi Biscoe Kenner serves as Bezos Academy’s Chief Learning Officer, where she is responsible for setting the vision and direction for how each child in their national network of schools becomes a creative leader, original thinker, and lifelong learner. She is a cognitive developmental psychologist, learning scientist, data scientist, and nonprofit organizational development guru who has committed her life’s work, for over 25 years, to opening access and obliterating opportunity gaps for children, families, and communities. Her work spans start-up efforts, school design, launch and operations, curriculum design and development, higher education teacher preparation, classroom teaching, and building bridges between research and developmental practice, policy, and innovative programming, products, and technologies. Before joining Bezos Academy, Brandi was Founder and CEO of Choice-filled Lives Network (CLN), a social change firm that partners with both national and international nonprofits, school systems, philanthropies, and social impact organizations to design and evaluate transformative organizations, products, and learning initiatives. Before founding CLN, Brandi founded two Constructivist, dual-language immersion schools and held senior leadership roles at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, The Atlanta Speech School and its Rollins Center for Language and Literacy, and Teach For America. Brandi has deep expertise in early language and literacy development, developmentally appropriate assessment design, and whole-child and self-directed learning models. In 2022, the International Society for Self-Directed Learning honored her for significant lifelong contributions to the field, awarding Brandi with the Malcolm Knowles Memorial Self-Directed Learning Award. A lifelong learner, Brandi earned a PhD in Cognitive Developmental Psychology from Emory University, an MS in Applied Data Intelligence and Machine Learning from Mercer University, an MEd in Special Education from Georgia State University, and a BGS in Elementary Education and Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is also currently an Executive MBA candidate at the GA Institute of Technology’s Scheller College of Business. Brandi is passionate about building bridges among research, policy, practice and technology to bolster innovation, opportunity, and access for young children and their families.