Briana Castaño
Briana is a School Design Partner at Transcend where she supports schools on their innovation journey through coaching and R&D cycles. She joined Transcend to work alongside and learn from some of the most innovative and equity-centered educators.
Prior to joining Transcend, Briana was the Director of Programming at Code2College, a national nonprofit whose mission is to diversify the STEM workforce by providing computer science programming, exposure, and internship experiences to students from historically underrepresented communities. During her time there, she led the organization’s largest team while coaching and developing instructional leaders. Before her time at Code2College, Briana served as the Managing Director of STEM at Teach For America where she revamped the organization’s STEM programming and initiatives to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Part of this work included building out TFA’s point-of-view on Computer Science education and launching a Computational Thinking pathway for all incoming corp members. Briana’s passion for innovative school models and equity-centered STEM education flourished during her time at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, TX where she transitioned from high school science teacher to school administrator. At Ann Richards she led the implementation of a flexible scheduling model based on students’ academic and wellness needs and developed a curriculum where blended learning and project-based learning merged to provide students with rigorous, relevant, and self-driven learning.
Briana holds an AB in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and a M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from Concordia University.
Briana lives in the Rio Grande Valley (San Benito, TX – puro 956!) with her husband and their daughter. When she’s not hanging out with her family and friends, you can find her wrangling her goats and sheep, at the beach, or exploring all the beauty Mexico has to offer.
Continue Your Journey
Leaps for Equitable, 21st-Century Learning
Transcend’s Leaps for Equitable, 21st-Century Learning describes the key ways we believe the student experience must change so that schools can prepare all young people to thrive in and transform the world.
Transform Learning with Community-Based Design
Community-based design is a collaborative and local process that brings together young people, educators, administrators, caregivers, and experts to redesign learning. It goes beyond traditional school improvement initiatives by involving the entire community in reshaping...
