Dr. Kohne received her Ed.D. from the University of California, Irvine/Los Angeles with a specialization in program analysis and evaluation. She founded SmartStart ECS and has served as the lead evaluator on numerous NSF projects. Projects include a UC Irvine and UC San Diego GK-12, University of Illinois, Chicago, and UC Riverside IGERT, Ironbound Films ISE documentary film called The Linguists, and a UC Irvine Noyce. Prior to founding SmartStart ECS, Dr. Kohne served as a high school science teacher and school site administrator in the Garden Grove Unified School district for 17 years and currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at University of California, Irvine.