Greg is originally from the Boston area. He studied media arts at Emerson College and focused on audio production, film, video, photography, and design. After college, he immersed himself in the local Boston music scene. He played in a band, worked as a sound engineer, and sold audio equipment.

Eventually, he returned to school to become a special education teacher. After completing his master's program, he moved to Portland and started his teaching career with Portland Public Schools. He taught as a special ed teacher for several years. Then, he became a classroom teacher and was honored as Teacher of the Year.

While teaching with PPS, he operated Activate, which offered arts-based summer camps and private dyslexia tutoring.

In 2019, after 15 years with PPS, he resigned to pursue Activate full-time. When COVID hit, Activate transitioned into an in-person microschool.

He’s been running Activate School since then, and it’s more popular than ever.

When he's not teaching or running camps, he records music under the name ‘gbtn.’ He also enjoys collecting records, swimming, cycling, studying orthography, plant-based cooking, and reading about radical approaches to education. 

Carissa is originally from the Cleveland area. After graduating from Cornell University with a degree in government, she spent her early career working as a speechwriter and legislative analyst covering issues ranging from education to transportation. 

Her passion for education issues became more personal after her children entered their school-age years. Her younger child struggled to learn to read and was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia. The difficulty her family experienced in getting a diagnosis and the appropriate instruction to address it is what propelled Carissa into the work she does today. She took post-baccalaureate courses in speech, language, and child development, became trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach to literacy instruction, and studied the Structured Word Inquiry method for reading, spelling, and vocabulary development.

As a lifelong learner, advocate, and research enthusiast, Carissa thoroughly enjoys teaching at Activate and tutoring students in the community. In her free time, she can be found reading, writing, swimming, curating plants with her son, practicing new dance choreography with her daughter, or taking a long walk in the rain.