Stav Birnbaum
Sr. Product Manager and Producer, Reading Universe
Stav got her high school teaching certification as an undergraduate at Brown University where she studied with Ted Sizer — a leader in the educational reform movement in the United States — who greatly influenced her belief in the progressive education movement. After getting her masters in Instructional Technology and Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, Stav found a home producing online activities for Scholastic.com. At Scholastic, Stav loved creating student-facing educational content that was based in pedagogical methods and gave teachers the support they needed in the classroom
Stav’s interest in learning how to teach reading grew after observing her younger daughter struggle with reading in elementary and middle school. She decided to deepen her understanding of the topic by taking a Science of Reading Fundamentals course at SUNY New Paltz. This class gave her a good foundation, and she looks forward to building her knowledge and getting effective classroom tools to teachers so that no student needs to struggle in learning to read.
Stav lives in Brooklyn with her husband (a high school public school teacher) and two teenage daughters and a houseful of pets including a dog, two cats and two rabbits.
Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.