Katie Krummeck joined The Lemelson Foundation in 2023 as a Program Officer. Focusing on Invention Education, Krummeck draws from her array of experiences to develop and scale educational programming that matches her deep belief in the power of hands-on, real-world learning to inspire students to solve complex problems and feel empowered to make the world a better place.
Krummeck is passionate about the power of design to drive change in social systems, and developing students’ creative confidence, optimism and problem-solving skills. She began her career as a secondary school teacher and co-founder of a small, experimental independent school, where students collaborated across age groups to engage in project-based, interdisciplinary learning. She helped scale a national education nonprofit startup, and helped develop the K-12 Lab at the Hasso Plattner Institute for Design at Stanford University.
Krummeck founded the Maker Education Project at Southern Methodist University, an initiative dedicated to catalyzing transformational maker-based learning experiences for students in K-12 schools. She has led design teams focused on a range of equity-focused issues, from redesigning the discipline process for a large urban school district to be more just and caring to supporting women micro-entrepreneurs in rural Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Recently, Krummeck served as the Global Design and Innovation Advisor for the Aga Khan Foundation, where she created an innovation process and toolkit for AKF’s Schools2030 initiative. This toolkit was translated into more than 10 languages and was deployed in 1,000 schools in 10 countries across the developing world. It was recognized in 2021 by two design and innovation competitions: Fast Company and Core77.Krummeck’s work has been published in multiple journals and has been featured in Fast Company, STANFORD magazine, EdSurge, and others. She holds a B.A. in American Studies (a degree she designed herself) from Whitman College. When not working on or thinking about how to make the education system more student-centered and equitable, Krummeck can be found hiking with friends, cooking and canning produce from her garden, walking her dog, and traveling the world.