Richard Culatta is a leader in the field of innovation and education, from early childhood education to corporate learning. In 2012 he was appointed by President Obama as the Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the U.S. Department of Education, where he focused on expanding connectivity to schools across the country, promoting personalized learning and developing a National Ed Tech Plan. He currently serves as the first Chief Innovation Officer for the State of Rhode Island. Prior to joining the Department of Education, he served as an education policy advisor to U.S. Senator Patty Murray.

Among his areas of interest are leveraging social media to create effective large-scale distributed learning environments. As Chief Technology Officer at CIA University, he developed a collaborative online learning platform to extend training opportunities to CIA officers worldwide.

Before his work with the federal government, Richard served as the learning technologies advisor for the David O. McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University and as the director of operations for the Rose Education Foundation.

He began working with instructional technology at the University of Rhode Island, where he co-taught the university’s first technology integration workshops for faculty. Since then, he has coached instructors and administrators in leveraging social media and data for learning, provided strategic consulting for organizations, and served on a variety of advisory boards across the U.S. and Latin America.

Richard is a certified Spanish teacher and an advocate of bilingual and arts education in public schools. He is married to the violinist, Shaundra and lives with his family in Washington DC.