Mary Nunley

Director of Program Innovation

​Mary is originally from Albuquerque, NM and graduated from Lehigh University with a B.A. in Architecture and a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 2012. Her journey into education began with the Teach for America Dallas-Fort Worth corps, where she taught high school math in Pleasant Grove for two years. Her commitment to supporting students and their interests fueled her continued passion for teaching, serving the West Dallas community and later as a founding teacher and leader of a new project-based learning campus in Downtown Dallas.
 
After her time in the classroom, Mary shifted her focus to creating broader systemic change in education, with a strong emphasis on utilizing design thinking to drive improvements. As the Design Thinking Coordinator with the Personalized Learning Department at Dallas ISD, she co-led the iDesign Central Fellowship, an experience for district leaders to build habits for design to lead teams and transform culture. Additionally, she supported campus leadership teams to apply design thinking to advance their priorities and promote continuous improvement. Building on this foundation, Mary joined Carnegie Learning, where she leveraged her content background and leadership experiences to assist schools in implementing high-quality instructional materials for secondary math classrooms. These roles collectively deepened her understanding of how user-centered approaches can enhance educational systems and student outcomes.
 
Mary holds an M.Ed. in STEM Education from Southern Methodist University and an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership from UNT Dallas, and is currently pursuing a Master of Design and Innovation at SMU. As the Director of Program Innovation for the Principal Impact Collaborative at UNT Dallas, Mary is excited to leverage her background in design thinking and program leadership to support school leaders in driving educational transformation and growth for their communities.