Meet Our Team
The team at Learning Seeds is a highly collaborative, multi-disciplinary team with experience in social emotional learning (SEL), early childhood, education, play, occupational therapy, applied behavior analysis (ABA), curriculum, speech, communications, technology, and software development.
Erica Key - Founder & Chief Learning Officer
25+ years of direct work with children.
Erica leads Learning Seeds, and is a member of the Education and Operations Teams.
After 25 years of successful real world, social emotional teaching, Erica founded Learning Seeds to scale the tremendous social and emotional growth she was seeing with our coaching methods (called Enlightened Shadowing).
She expertly guides the Learning Seeds team as we combine social emotional learning and effective teaching practices with innovative technology to help preschoolers to grow their positive social habits, expand their autonomy, and build authentic social connections.
Erica has a degree from the University of Chicago and has done post graduate work at Northwestern University.
Terri Foster, MS OTR/L - Education Team Lead
25+ years of direct work with children.
As the Education Team Lead, Terri supports our Education Team in their work with students.
She has extensive experience working with preschool to school-aged children with developmental delays, fine motor/handwriting delays, sensory processing difficulties, and autism spectrum disorders. Her work with children and families has taken place in schools, homes, hospitals, and outpatient clinics.
In addition to her work as an Occupational Therapist (OT) and an Enlightened Shadow, Terri also presents nationally to early childhood and elementary school teachers and occupational therapists on emergent writing, fine motor and handwriting skills.
Terri has a BS from Boston College and an MS in Occupational Therapy from Tufts University.
Jean Leto - Educator
30+ years of direct work with children.
Jean is a member of the Education Team at Learning Seeds.
Jean’s first degree in Math led to work at Columbia University researching environmental impacts on families, while training as a dancer at New York University and in NYC.
She discovered her love of working with children as math tutor, dancer, and as a young mother leading playgroups and after school activities. She taught in the classroom for 30 years and participated in advocacy work in the Early Childhood field while pursuing a B.S. at Lesley University in Child Development and the Role of Play in Learning.
She respects the natural unfoldment of a child’s development and learning styles; as a dancer and musician, she appreciates the multiple and creative intelligences that help us to interact and to make sense of belonging.
Jean is excited to be part of the Learning Seeds team to help support children to engage more fully and easily with the world and the people around them.
Ellen Penafiel, M.Ed. - Educator
25+ years of direct work with children.
Ellen is a member of the Education Team at Learning Seeds.
Ellen has always enjoyed working with children and consistently is learning and finding joy in their imaginative stories, play, and metacognition. After pursuing her BA in Elementary and Moderate Special Needs Education from Boston College, Ellen took a position as a special education teacher in New Hampshire. She created an inclusive program focusing on academics, life skills, and various social/emotional goals for students with significant cognitive delays. As an educator, advocate, Girl Scout leader, and mother, Ellen became increasingly interested in the social/emotional growth of all learners and the impact that their development has on their learning. She enjoys creatively leading each child through their own self-discovery while recognizing and building upon their strengths. She engages with each student at their developmental level to allow them to make valuable contributions to their environment.
Ellen has a Master’s Degree in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.
Jason Key, PhD - CTO
Jason is a member of the Operations Team at Learning Seeds.
With deep experience in dev/ops and software engineering, Jason manages all technology projects at Learning Seeds. He has earned degrees from Purdue University and the University of Chicago.