Nicholas Smith brings to Aplia over 20 years of experience in education and instructional technology. Nicholas joined Aplia in 2001, and has since helped to build or lead a number of key teams, including content production, customer support, and sales. Before joining Aplia, Nicholas developed and produced online courses for Pensare, Inc., a web-based professional training and development company. Prior experiences include establishing and managing employee computer training programs throughout Europe and the United States for SRI Consulting; providing consulting services for the Alliance for Lifelong Learning, an online educational partnership of Oxford, Stanford, and Yale; and helping to found and grow the middle-school program at Keys School in Palo Alto, CA.
Nicholas holds a master's degree from Brandeis University.
RICK MEYERS | Chief Technology Officer
Rick Meyers is an expert in using multimedia technology in education. His skills in Flash, ActionScript, XML, and a host of authoring, graphic arts, and sound editing tools are backed by more than 30 years of training and experience in physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, human factors, and multimedia. Prior to joining Aplia, Rick owned and operated Meyers Labs, a contract engineering house specializing in CD-ROM and Internet-based multimedia for education. Past clients include Summit Performance Group, Zeeks.com, Alfy.com, Pensare, LightSurf, ThinkBox, and Pierian Spring Software, as well as Aplia. Rick created and continues to operate the educational kids' site Zoopz.com. Rick has served as a Systems Software Engineer and Engineering Manager at Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, and Taligent. His many credits at these firms include Lisa Smalltalk, Apple's MPW 1.0 for Macintosh, and Taligent's acclaimed CompTech C++ compiler.
Rick holds a BA in physics and mathematics from Hope College and an MS in IEEE/computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.
DANIEL WHITE | Executive Director
Daniel White brings strategic and analytic leadership to Aplia. He has been with Aplia for over 5 years, working in channel management, business development, and sales. Before coming to Aplia, Daniel received his MS in Economics from Georgia Institute of Technology where he also completed a concentration in Educational Technology from the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) program.
DAVID MURPHY | Senior Director of Engineering
David Murphy joined Aplia in 2006 with an extensive background in software design and engineering. In his role at Aplia David’s responsibilities focus on managing software engineering and quality assurance for Aplia’s web based learning platform. Before joining Aplia David was the founder and president of NetDirect LLC which was a software engineering company formed to provide high performance data access solutions to the enterprise Java marketplace. During his tenure at NetDirect David was also a member of a number of Java Community Process (JCP) expert groups tasked with designing Java platform data access technologies. David has also participated in leading and managing software development teams in fields such as broadcasting, enterprise application integration and software quality analysis.
David holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Sydney University in Australia.
SUSAN MICHAEL | Director of User Experience
Susan J. Michael is the Director of User Experience at Aplia, where she leads a team engaged in user-centered design and research. Susan joined Aplia in 2008 and is focused on continuously improving the teaching and learning offerings for Aplia customers. Susan has been a practioner and director in the areas of design and user experience for educational software for nearly 20 years. Prior to joining Aplia, she led design and user experience teams at Cengage Learning, Riverdeep, and Harcourt/Holt, Rinehart & Winston. She has also designed educational software for Shell, IBM, and the Texas Association of School Boards. Susan received her MS in Library Science and her BFA in Design from the University of North Texas.
SHELBY MACKAY WELSCH | Director of Sales
Shelby MacKay Welsch brings more than 11 years of direct sales and management experience to Aplia, where she is responsible for directing the sales team. Prior to joining Aplia, Shelby was instrumental in steering the growth of MailFrontier, Inc., the leader in e-mail security, until its profitable acquisition by SonicWall in 2006. As the first sales representative at MailFrontier, she was responsible for acquiring customers as well as building and leading a strong sales team. Shelby has worked extensively throughout the Bay Area with companies such as Calico, Inc., and Enviz, Inc., and brings an energetic spirit to Aplia.
KRISTEN FORD | Executive Editor
Kristen Ford manages Aplia's team of writers, editors, and producers. She has been with Aplia since its start-up days, when her team consisted of just five people working on one subject area. She has since grown the team by 700% (and counting!) as they continue to tackle more subject areas each year.
Kristen received her BA in English from SUNY Geneseo.
LYSSA VANDERBEEK | Manager, Product Development
Lyssa Vanderbeek offers over 7 years of experience in educational technology. Lyssa joined Aplia in 2001, and has since helped to build and manage a diversity of teams, including customer support and product development. Before coming to Aplia, Lyssa received her BA in Economics from Whitman College. She is Aplia’s longest-serving employee and is currently completing her MBA at the University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business.
Paul Romer was the primary developer of new growth theory, which reduces the traditional emphasis on the scarcity of objects and directs attention to the power of new ideas, bringing renewed optimism about the potential for growth in both advanced and developing economies. He was awarded the Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics in 2002 and was named one of America's 25 most influential people by TIME magazine in 1997. Paul is currently a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Center for International Development (SCID) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Just prior, he was the STANCO 25 Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He had also taught economics at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. Paul founded Aplia with the conviction that improving education will be the key to sustaining technological progress in the 21st century.
