Robert Salley was a member of the 2009 NYC Education Pioneers Cohort. Robert's summer placement was at the NYC Department of Education in the Office of Talent Management. His project was to redesign the Chancellor's Fellowship, which is a leadership development program for mid-career managers working in central district administration. By working through program design elements, he was involved in program evaluation of the previous year's program which was a major driver of the redesign, conducting needs assessments of managers in the organization, setting new learning goals to enhance the program for FY'10 and making proposals to management and seeking senior leader buy-in of the redesigned program. Prior to Education Pioneers, Robert was a classroom teacher for three years in Baltimore City through the Teach For America Program. Robert left the classroom to work as a Special Assistant to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent federal government agency, where he coordinated large scale change management. More specifically, he coordinated a restructuring of Human Resources and oversaw a major hiring initiative from conception to implementation. In addition, he concurrently served as an advisor to the COO on streamlining business processes in IT, facilities, procurement, finance and budgeting. Robert went on to graduate school at Columbia University where he studied Organizational Psychology focusing on change management. He also holds a Masters in Arts in Teaching from the Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.