The DCC is lead by a team of professionals who are passionate about building technology and tools that support insitutions and learners.
Our Team
Kerri Lemoie, Ph.D. directs the development, planning, and strategy of the DCC. Kerri has been working on the web for 25+ years as a web developer and in multiple leadership capacities and advisory roles. As one of the founding technical contributors to Open Badges, she is a recognized leader in the digital credentials ecosystem. Kerri completed her Ph.D. at Fielding Graduate University in Media Psychology. Her dissertation research focused on technology adoption of self-sovereign digital identity.
Gillian Walsh is the Operations and Project Manager for the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC). Her work focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of academic programming and technologies that promote equitable pathways for meaningful careers for learners across the world, particularly those from vulnerable communities. Gillian holds a BA in History from Kent State University and a Masters in International Higher Education and Intercultural Relations from Lesley University.
Dmitri Zagidulin, a distributed systems engineer and authentication and credentials expert, is the Technical Architect for the DCC. He also participates in hands-on development of core decentralization libraries, helps organize conferences, and contributes to open standards.
Alex Higuera is a Senior Software Engineer at the DCC, working on verifiable credentials for use in higher learning. Previously, she worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Cengage, building platforms for higher learning and continuing education. Active at the intersection of technology, education, and community, Alex serves on the board of two international non-profits in her free time: NeuroTechX and World Computer Exchange.
My name is Kayode Ezike, but you can call me Ayo. I was born to two Nigerian Igbo immigrants in New York, where I have lived for most of my life, outside of school. When it was time for college, I shifted my focus to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science before specializing as a graduate student in system design and application development in Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). Much of my work these days focuses on technologies that enable users to leverage their personal data for access to new opportunities. Outside of the DCC, this work happens primarily at Gobekli and other partner organizations that I am privileged to support. When I am not working, I enjoy singing, writing, lifting, and playing basketball.
James Chartrand has developed software for over thirty years, mostly in higher-ed, primarily designing and developing systems for collection, edit, analysis and publication of research data, with a focus on digital credentialing over the last five years.
Philipp Schmidt is CTO of Axim Collaborative and a research scientist and advisor for digital credentials at MIT. Prior to joining Axim, he was the Director of Digital Learning at the MIT Media Lab. He co-authored the Cape Town Open Education Declaration and has developed a number of open standards for digital academic credentials including Mozilla Open Badges. Philipp holds a CS degree from FH Furtwangen in Germany and an MBA from MIT.
Brandon Muramatsu works at the intersection of learning, technology, innovation and scale, with a special focus on open education. Brandon leads the design and implementation of local, national and international strategic education initiatives at MIT for MIT Open Learning. Current work includes the development of an infrastructure for digital academic credentials and the establishment of a STEAM high school utilizing open educational resources and project based learning. He earned his B.S. (1993) and M.S. (1995) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
