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Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer & Head of Schools, Carmen Schools of Science and Technology

Dr. Patricia Hoben is co-founder, chief executive officer and head of schools of Carmen Schools of Science and Technology, a small but growing network of college and career preparatory charter schools including two high schools and a middle school. She has been involved in science and technology policy and education reform initiatives at the national, state, and local levels. Dr. Hoben served as a policy analyst on studies of the U.S. biotechnology industry and the international human genome mapping project for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment. She then went on to work for the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health as an advisor on public health and science policy issues. Later Dr. Hoben headed the pre-college and public science education grants program at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She also served in a special appointment at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, and as the Associate Director of a Minneapolis-based science museum, the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life. Dr. Hoben established and led a $6 million community collaborative to strengthen K-12 science education in the Minneapolis Public Schools in the late 1990s. Dr. Hoben also serves on the boards of the Milwaukee Public Museum, the University School of Milwaukee, the Harbor District, Schools that Can Milwaukee, and Teach for America - Milwaukee. She received the Milwaukee Business Journal's Woman of Influence award for Innovation in 2009 and is the recipient of awards from the United Community Center, Casa Romero Renewal Center and others or her work in founding and leading Carmen Schools. Dr. Hoben earned a doctoral degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University. She is a Fellow of the 14th class of the Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.