We are a team of entrepreneurs, researchers, and industry leaders with deep experience in education technology, venture building, and impact-driven investment.
Leadership
Henry Hipps
Co-Founder & CEO
Henry Hipps, Co-Founder & CEO of Diffusion Venture Studio, leverages investment capital, sector knowledge, and impact to support leading-edge learning and work ventures. As Senior Advisor and Entrepreneur in Residence at Owl Ventures, he led investments in EdTech, curriculum, tutoring, and school models. As Deputy Director of the Education team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he led product innovation and system redesign.
Previously, he directed technology and operations at the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. As Founder & CEO of Trajectory Learning, he delivered culturally-relevant K-12 courseware. Before education, he led global teams at IBM Business Consulting. Throughout his career, he’s used entrepreneurship and innovation for social impact.
Peter Bergman
Co-Founder & CSO
Peter Bergman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He leads the social science research lab Learning Collider and co-chairs the Improving Education Outcomes in North America Initiative at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). He’s also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and an Innovation Fellow at Schmidt Futures.
His research has been published in prestigious journals like Nature Human Behavior, Journal of Political Economy, and Journal of Labor Economics. It’s been covered by major media outlets like The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, CNN, and Vox. Learn more at peter-bergman.com.
Sandro Olivieri
COO
Sandro is the Chief Operations Officer at Diffusion Venture Studio where he leads the effort to operationalize Diffusion’s innovative venture creation process. As part of that effort, Sandro runs Diffusion’s AI Venture Lab - a program focused on ensuring that research is a core driver of both impact and business value for the most innovative startups working at the intersection of Math and AI.
Prior to Diffusion, Sandro ran an impact investment and innovation firm that specialized in designing, building, and operating impact acceleration programs like the AT&T Aspire Accelerator program. Sandro also worked on corporate innovation programs across telecom, consumer product, and education verticals.
Melanie Dukes
Principal
Creighton Taylor
Principal
Advisors & Extended Team
We collaborate with an extended network of experts in education technology, research, venture capital, and workforce development.
Advisors
Peter Cohen
Former President, University of Phoenix
Former President, McGraw-Hill
Evan Marwell
Founder & CEO, Education Super Highway
Co-Founder, Ignite! Reading
Greg Gunn
Founder, Lingo Ventures
Co-Founder, Wireless Generation (Amplify)
Collaborators
Sendhil Mullainathan
Professor of Computational and Behavioral Science, Chicago Booth School of Business
Ashesh Rambachan
Assistant Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oeindrila Dube
Philip K. Pearson Professor, Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago
Nabeel Gillani
Assistant Professor of Design and Data Analysis, Northeastern University
Guru Sethupathy
Founder & CEO, FairNow
Yscaira Jimenez
Founder & CEO, LaborX, acquired by Opportunity@Work
Alvin Crawford
Founder & CEO, EdviceK12, Inc.
Matt Miller
Founder, OKO Labs