About our Executive Director
Manya C. Bouteneff, EdD
Manya C. Bouteneff, EdD, is Executive Director of Better Outcomes Research and Senior Research Professor and Faculty Coach at Monroe College, King Graduate School.
Her greatest passion is in beating the odds: creating high-performing environments so that students in traditionally under-performing demographic groups can succeed. This passion has brought her to her current work as a researcher.
She earned her doctorate in Educational Administrative Practice from Columbia University’s Teachers College. Her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction is from the University of Vermont.
Manya’s experience includes public-school building, district, and regional leadership for 18 years. She has held elementary, middle, high-school, and district leadership positions, turning around two schools that remain highly effective. She was Executive Director of the Hudson Valley RBE-RN for three years, serving a region of 144 districts. Manya also taught French in grades 2, 4-12 and Russian in grades 9-12 for 14 years, and spent two years teaching English as a new language to adults in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa.
About our Research Associate
Sally Cavada
Sally Cavada was born to immigrant parents and was raised in New York City. She entered the NYC school system in Brooklyn speaking only Spanish. Sally’s pathway through the wide-ranging education system in the U.S. has given her the lens to understand various cultural perspectives and attitudes towards teaching and learning.
Sally is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership at Manhattanville College. She holds two Master's degrees: in Teaching and Curriculum from the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester, and in International and Transcultural Studies from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, Public Health, and Society from the University of Rochester.
After many years as a public-school elementary teacher in New York City and in Westchester County, Sally has made the commitment to dedicate her life’s work to creating better educational opportunities for traditionally underperforming and underrepresented groups.