Executive Director, San Antonio Children's Museum

Vanessa Lacoss Hurd is the Executive Director of the San Antonio Children’s Museum.  Prior to this, Ms. Hurd served as Partner for The New Teacher Project’s Training and Certification line.  In this role, Ms. Hurd was responsible for the expansion, implementation and continuing evolution of TNTP’s teacher certification projects, including the Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program, Texas Teaching Fellows and the Maryland Practitioner Teacher Program. Prior to joining TNTP, Vanessa served as Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Development for Jumpstart, where she developed a new budgeting and cost-allocation system, managed the start-up of two of the organization’s five regions, and launched a pilot initiative to expand Jumpstart in partnership with another national nonprofit organization. In addition, Vanessa served as Executive Director for Teach For America in Houston, TX for four years and spent three years as a teacher, two of them in Houston as a Teach For America corps member. She holds a Master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a BA in History and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.