Brightworks is a K-12 Independent School founded in 2011 by the non-profit organization, Institute for Applied Tinkering (IAT).
The IAT provides strategy, support and oversight to both Brightworks School & it’s summer program, Tinkering School.
Our Board of Trustees
Kirsty Nathoo
Co-Treasurer
Mirella Abounayan
Mirella is an artist, designer, builder, and mother to two Brightworks students. Trained with a B.Arch in architecture, she’s a tinkerer at heart. She is drawn to the question of how physical spaces shape the way people learn, and brings that lens to the IAT Board. Treating the built environment as an active participant in alternative education rather than a container for it. Working in the school's own wood shop alongside fellow parent volunteers, she designed and built a plywood library that shifts with the Brightworks Arc — reconfiguring as students move from exploration to exposition to reflect the learning cycle. A believer in magic, she feels most at home on a sandy beach or under a redwood tree. She views obstacles as opportunities to ask, "What else is possible?"
Tani Peelgrane
Co-Secretary
Heather Hund
Co-Treasurer
Heather is a product marketer and strategic leader. She consultants with companies and high-growth startups, helping them innovate, grow and deeply understand their consumers. Prior to that, she worked at BCG and in private equity at Goldman Sachs. She has an MBA from Stanford and an MA in Art History from Oxford. She has two children at Brightworks in the lower school.
Xan Morgan
Debolina Dutta
With a passion for fostering inclusive and dynamic learning environments, Debolina has dedicated her career to advancing educational equity and innovation. Debolina’s experience spans K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and non-profit organizations, where she led initiatives in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (JEDI), secured substantial grant funding, and developed groundbreaking educational pathways. Known for her collaborative approach, she has successfully implemented programs that support underrepresented students, coached educators to enhance instructional practices, and driven organizational change to ensure policies are child-centered and inclusive. Her commitment to whole-self development and lifelong learning fuels her drive to create impactful educational experiences that empower students and educators alike. Debolina is a mom to four kiddos; one of whom is a Brightworks student. .
Elizabeth Rubenstein
Co-Secretary
Elizabeth is a founding parent of Brightworks whose two children attended the school from ages 6 and 7 until they went off to college.
Elizabeth's own education in industrial design and architectural photography helped her stumble upon a career in visual arts education. She honed her collaborative teaching style through understanding three powerful paradigms: Teaching for Artistic Behavior, Arts Integrated Learning, and Design Thinking.
She has enjoyed teaching and learning with K-8 children, art education graduate students, and practicing K-12 educators throughout the SF Bay Area.
In her current education advocacy work, Elizabeth strives to support Brightworks collaborators and families in trusting the power and joy of student-led learning.
Laura
Board Chair
Laura is an entrepreneur, designer, self-taught software engineer, people leader, and investor.
CaTameron Bobino
CaT Bobino is a STEM Ambassador, science communicator, and founder of Communications in STEM. With a passion for demystifying and diversifying STEM, she creates engaging media, educational programs, and books that highlight the stories of underrepresented voices in science. CaT is also the author of the Carter Can Be children’s book series, which introduces young readers to diverse STEM careers. She has also started My STEM Ed, a virtual platform bringing STEM professionals into classrooms around the world. Through her work, she inspires families, schools, and communities to explore the wonders of science and see themselves in the world of STEM.
Abby Sommerfeld
Abby is a coach, educator, writer, and parent. As a coach, Abby helps parents, partners and people get clear on what matters to them and clear out what gets in the way. She holds and co-creates space for individuals and teams to identify and honor needs, name and audit values, set and meet goals, design and implement systems, cultivate and concretize alignment, and discover a deep understanding of and connectedness to themselves and one another. In addition to her private coaching practice, Abby also leads workshops for parents and schools, entrepreneurial mothers circles, and writes a newsletter. Abby's interest in education began as a high school student in New York where she attended a public alternative high school influenced by Lawrence Kohlberg's just community approach to moral education and one of Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools. That passion led her to pursue her masters in education at Tufts and apprenticeship at Shady Hill School in Cambridge. She has lived, learned, taught, built programs, collaborated, and coached in schools and communities on both coasts as well as overseas. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son who is in his sixth year at Brightworks.