As executive director, Karen Lee is responsible for supporting the Hawai‘i P-20 Council and overseeing Hawai‘i P-20 programs. P-20’s major programs include the W.K. Kellogg Foundation-funded Hawai‘i P-3 Initiative, which promotes partnerships within the early learning community to strengthen the continuum of early learning experiences for children, and programs such as GEAR UP and Step Up, designed to increase student readiness for post-high school success. She also guides the inter-agency team responsible for the design of a statewide longitudinal data system to inform policy- and decision-making for the improvement of educational outcomes in Hawai‘i.
Lee served as the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at the University of Hawai‘i System since 2006. In that role, she was responsible for UH system-wide student affairs policies and student-related initiatives, such as financial aid policies, the Regents and Presidential Scholarship program, system-wide scholarships, student residency status related to tuition, and registration policies. She collaborated closely with the chief student affairs officers on each UH campus, and served as the advisor to the UH Student Caucus, an advisory body of students from each of the UH campuses.
Lee has served as Executive Assistant to the UH president and as Undergraduate Coordinator of the Office of Student Academic Services at the UH Manoa Shidler College of Business. She has also been Assistant Dean of Students and Senior Assistant Director of Admissions at Columbia University (NY), and Assistant Director of Admission at Colgate University (NY).
Lee holds a doctorate in education from the University of Southern California, and a master's degree in higher education administration and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Columbia University.
Dr. Robert G. Peters, Ed.D. - Chair Early Learning Council
As Chair of the Early Learning Council, Robert Peters works with 13 public and private partners to design a statewide, comprehensive early learning system. Charged by the Legislature in 2009, the Council is concerned with the holistic needs of children birth to age 5 to enhance the potential for school success while addressing the readiness of schools to meet the needs of the children they admit.
Peters has been Head of School at Hanahau‘oli School since 1982. Hanahu`oli is a multi age school in the progressive education tradition which has been designated as a Blue Ribbon School nationally. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Smith College Campus School in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he also taught courses at Smith College, Hampshire College and the University of Massachusetts. He is past president of both the Hawai‘i Alliance for Arts in Education and the Hawai‘i Association of Independent Schools where he serves on the Executive
Committee and as chair of the Elementary Accreditation Commission. Peters sits on the boards of Holy Nativity School and Academy of the Pacific serving as chair of the former’s Education Committee and the latter’s Committee on Trustees.
Peters earned a doctorate in Educational Foundations from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and has been an instructor in the UH College of Education and the UH-HAIS Masters Degree program in Private School Leadership. Currently a member of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Accreditation Commission, Peters has also served on the board of the National Association of Independent Schools. In 2000, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University.
Kathryn Matayoshi - Superintendent, Hawai‘i State Department of Education
Kathryn Matayoshi was appointed by the Hawai‘i State Board of Education as superintendent of the Department of Education in September 2010. Prior to her appointment, she served as acting and interim superintendent and deputy superintendent since 2009. Matayoshi is an attorney and former state director with expertise in public policy and strategic planning and has played an integral role in transforming and streamlining the Department’s systems and operations.
Matayoshi comes to the DOE following a successful career in private, government and nonprofit sectors. She served as the executive director of the Hawai‘i Business Roundtable, president and chief executive officer of Community Links Hawai‘i, chief of staff for the City & County of Honolulu Board of Water Supply and director of the State Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. She also owned a strategic planning consultancy and held positions at Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc, Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel and served as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Samuel P. King.
Matayoshi currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Aloha United Way and Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. She is also a charter member of the Hawai‘i P-20 Council.
An alumni of Hilo High School, Matayoshi holds a juris doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and a bachelor’s degree from Carleton College.
Dr. M.R.C. Greenwood - President, University of Hawai‘i System
M.R.C. Greenwood is chancellor emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz, and director of the Foods for Health Initiative, chair of the Graduate Group in Nutritional Biology and distinguished professor of nutrition and internal medicine at the University of California, Davis. She also holds an appointment as adjunct professor of public health and nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley.
A nationally and internationally known expert on obesity and diabetes, Greenwood is also considered a national leader on science and technology policy and an expert on higher education policy issues. Her work over the past 40 years, focusing on the genetic causes of obesity and on science policy issues, is recognized worldwide, and she is the author of numerous scientific publications and presentations.
Greenwood served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs for the University of California system, the second highest position in the 10-campus system, from April 2004 to November 2005.
She served as chancellor of UC Santa Cruz from July 1996 to April 2004. Her major accomplishments include launching the campus’s first professional school, the Jack Baskin School of Engineering; fostering establishment of the NSF Center for Adaptive Optics with subsequent support from the Moore Foundation; increasing the number of academic programs by 52 percent, from 63 to 96, including a 41 percent increase in graduate programs; opening UC system’s first new residential colleges in 30 years; hiring 250 new faculty members; raising morale, more than doubling extramural research support; constructing nearly one million assignable square feet in academic buildings for the arts, sciences and engineering; establishing a UC Silicon Valley Center at Moffett Field and developing the nation’s first NASA University Affiliated Research Center, the largest competitively awarded contract ($330 million) at the University of California up to that time.
Greenwood is a member of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Sciences, has been president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity (now the Obesity Society), president of the American Society of Clinical Nutrition and chair of the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a fellow, past president and board chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Greenwood graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College and received her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University.
