Our Team

Talia Milgrom-Elcott

Founder & Executive Director

Talia is the Founder and Executive Director of The Starfish Institute. She is widely recognized for her visionary and innovative approach to tackling large, systemic challenges.

Talia is also the Founder and Executive director of Beyond100K (formerly 100Kin10), a nonprofit that prepared nearly 110,000 STEM teachers in 10 years and is committed to ending the STEM teacher shortage. Beyond100K is now working towards its next moonshot goal: preparing and retaining 150,000 new STEM teachers, especially for schools serving majority Black, Latinx, and Native American students by 2032.

Talia’s innovative work has been featured in Forbes, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Harvard Business Review, and other publications. Prior, she worked at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the NYC Department of Education. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and Harvard Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their three fierce and (mostly) fun young daughters.

Justin D’Angona

Managing Director

Justin is the Managing Director of the Starfish Institute. Justin is an experienced leader in environmental conservation, innovation, and social impact, with over 15 years of managing large-scale initiatives and partnerships across sectors.

Prior to joining Starfish, he worked with the XPRIZE Foundation, where he built global partner networks to accelerate innovation and scale the impact of emerging solutions to humanity’s grand challenges.

Before this, he spent a decade at Greenpeace USA developing strategic campaigns and grassroots networks that drove major victories for the environment.

Justin graduated magna cum lauda from Whittier College with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Sociology and is based in Los Angeles.

Grace Doramus

Principal

Grace is a Principal at Starfish Institute, where she plays a leadership role in building out and growing the organization, oversees Starfish’s client-facing projects, and manages the Starfish team.

Grace is also the Chief Innovation Officer at Beyond100K (formerly 100Kin10), where she leads the organization’s efforts to take a nimble approach in shaping how Beyond100K catalyzes long-term, systemic change against the grand challenges facing STEM education. Previously, she served as the Chief of Staff for 100Kin10, and before that, as the Project Associate for the Opportunity Equation, a STEM education mobilization initiative that helped launch 100Kin10.

Grace, who holds a Bachelors degree in History from Princeton University, taught math and science in a Special Day Class setting at the International Studies Academy in San Francisco as a Teach For America corps member.

Our Advisors

An-Me Chung

DIRECTOR & STRATEGIC ADVISOR
NEW AMERICA
Cecilia Conrad

CEO
LEVER FOR CHANGE
David Ehrlichman

COFOUNDER
CONVERGE
Mo Fong

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
STANFORD TECHNOLOGY VENTURES PROGRAM
Olivia Leland

FOUNDER, CEO
CO-IMPACT
Edwin Macharia

CO-FOUNDER
AXUM
Emily Oster

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND INTERNATIONAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
BROWN UNIVERSITY
Christina Peña Brower

FOUNDING PARTNER
A/B PARTNERS
Sandy Speicher

FORMER CEO
IDEO
Robert Ellsworth Wise Jr.

FORMER GOVERNOR
WEST VIRGINIA

Interested in sharing your talent?

We’re always looking to connect with great people trying to solve big problems. If you’d like to get involved with Starfish Institute, we’d love to hear from you!