[*Please note this call is on Sunday, not on our usual day Saturday] As conversations about artificial intelligence have begun to eclipse questions of connection, Michelle Culver, a long-time leader in the education space, last year launched The Rithm Project—a nonprofit dedicated to rethreading the fabric of human relationship in the digital age. Through youth-led research, public storytelling, and transformative curriculum, Rithm invites us to slow down and ask: In a world of accelerating technology, how do we stay anchored in what makes us most human? With initiatives rooted in dialogue, design, and imagination, Michelle’s work beckons us toward a future where intelligence is not just artificial, but empathetic.
This work culminates Michelle’s remarkable journey as a leader, educator, and parent. Long before the world began whispering about AI, Michelle was listening. Not just with her ears, but with something deeper—an attunement to what lies beneath words, beneath structures, beneath what we call the form and "re-form" of education. Her listening began in a fifth-grade classroom in Compton, California, where she taught kids not only math and reading, but dignity, hope, and the unseen art of becoming. It was there, surrounded by children who carried both dreams and burdens, that she began to understand: transformation begins with presence.
What followed was not a career but a calling. Michelle spent over two decades walking the seam between equity and innovation, reimagining education not as a delivery system, but as a living, breathing relationship. At Teach For America, she helped build the organization’s first national program team, one that expanded teacher support while centering diversity. As Executive Vice President of Regional Operations, she held the stewardship of $68 million in funding, 2,000 educators, 300 staff, and the lives of more than 200,000 students. But even at this vast scale, Michelle remained close to the pulse: the single teacher finding her voice, the student discovering his worth, the community daring to believe in itself again.
Michelle came to understand that even the most improved systems could only go so far if they were built on the same old scaffolding. She wasn’t interested in tweaking the status quo—she felt called to redesign it. So she founded the Reinvention Lab, a space not of answers but of experiments, where multigenerational teams explored what school could become when designed for human flourishing. It was a place where tradition met curiosity, where failure was welcome, and where the future wasn’t something to fear—but something to co-create.
Her vision is not theoretical—it is lived. At home, she is raising two daughters with her husband, a futurist at Salesforce. Together, they are not simply preparing their children for the future—they are asking what kind of future deserves their children. This question animates Michelle’s roles as an advisor to Playlab AI, aiEDU, and The Circle India, and as a board member for RISE Colorado and the Reinvention Lab. Across these platforms, she continues to ask quietly disruptive questions—inviting systems and souls alike to soften, to listen, to change.
A Pahara Fellow with the Aspen Institute, Michelle does not fit neatly into titles. She is a convener of hard conversations, a weaver of systems and story, a witness to the quiet courage it takes to imagine something different. And in every room she enters—be it a classroom, boardroom, or virtual gathering—she brings with her the same fierce and tender commitment: to stay human.
Join us in conversation with this gentle visionary, who reminds us that even in the age of algorithms, it is the quality of our attention—and our connection—that shapes the world to come.
