Aya Taveras recently left her full-time role as the Director of Story and Representation at Perception Institute, but she remains a collaborating partner. Aya develops new program content to support learning and development and facilitates mind science workshops on implicit bias, identity anxiety, and stereotype threat. She has worked in the public and private sectors with domestic and international leadership, managers, and staff, facilitating ongoing institutional development as well as individual workshops. She also engages in individual coaching as part of post-workshop support.

Aya currently leads Perception’s work in the media and culture context, developing original online content, assessing the efficacy of narrative campaigns through a mind-science lens, and supporting children’s media content creators in developing worlds that promote dignified representation across lines of difference.

Early in her career, Aya taught 6-8th grade English Language Arts in Brooklyn and Washington Heights before moving into strategic work in the education equity landscape. Prior to joining Perception, she worked in education advocacy, seeking to elevate the voices of teachers who identify as women of color and supported program expansion at Girls Who Code.

A native New Yorker, Aya is driven to the mind sciences as a function of her own experiences as a student in New York City and at Middlebury College, where she was one of the very few women of color. She is compelled and committed to using her expertise to ensure that organizations and institutions learn to grapple effectively with identity differences to ensure belonging for all. Aya has an M.A.T. from the Relay Graduate School of Education, a B.A. in International Studies: Political Science and Latin American Studies from Middlebury College, and is currently working on an Oral History MA at Columbia University. Aya is based in New York, NY.