Next level visionaries

Dr. Candace Thille is the director for workforce and adult learning in the Stanford Accelerator for Learning and a professor of Education and Neuroscience at Stanford University. 

In January 2018, Candace left the academy and Joined Amazon to create and lead a new organization, Learning Science and Engineering. As the Director of Learning Science, she led the company’s global organization to build the technical infrastructure and work processes to innovate and scale workplace learning for Amazon’s 1.6 million employees world-wide.  She resigned from Amazon in December 2022 and rejoined Stanford in February 2023. 

Thille was the founding director of the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) at Carnegie Mellon University and at Stanford University.  For the past two decades, in all her roles, her focus has been on applying the results from research in the science of human learning to the design and evaluation of technology mediated learning environments and in using those environments to conduct research at the intersection of human learning and machine learning.

Thille currently serves on the board of Trustees at ETS and on the board of directors for the California Learning Lab in the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research.   She has served on the board of directors of the Association of American Colleges and Universities; as a fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education; on the Assessment 2020 Task Force of the American Board of Internal Medicine; on the advisory council for the Association of American Universities STEM initiative; and on the advisory council for the National Science Foundation Directorate for Education and Human Resources.  She served on the working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that produced the Engage to Excel report and on the U.S. Department of Education working groups, co-authoring the 2010 and 2015 National Education Technology Plans.

Thille holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University, and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.