Ulcca is currently associate director of national outreach and partnerships for Education Reimagined, building an ecosystem of partners that support educators as they pioneer learner-centered environments around the country.

Prior to joining Education Reimagined, Ulcca served as VP of the Public Education and Business Coalition and and executive director of the Colorado Boettcher Teacher Residency, the largest statewide teacher residency program in the country serving both urban and rural school districts.

She developed strategic plan for the expansion/scaling of the Colorado Boettcher Teacher Residency to become a statewide pipeline for effective teachers. She developed and oversaw a strategy for merging the programs, operations and budgets of two organizational programs into one Education Team. Oversaw a budget of $3.5 million, a staff of 16 and an overall team of fifty.

Prior, Ulcca was Associate Director to the Technical Advisory Group to the State Council for Educator Effectiveness, Colorado Legacy Foundation. She coordinated 12+ work groups that are assisting the Council to develop recommendations regarding the development, rollout and implementation of an educator effectiveness framework implemented into law by CO Senate Bill 191 in May 2010.

Ulcca began her career in the classroom as an elementary teacher in Newark Public Schools. Ulcca holds a BA from Drew University and a certificate in early childhood and elementary education, with a focus on special education. She also earned her Ph.D. in Education and Philosophy from Oxford University and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Ulcca’s new book, The Future of Smart, was officially launched! It debuted as the #1 New Release on Amazon and hit #1 in ten individual categories including Education Policy, Education Theory and Research & Education and Teaching. Early reviewers are confirming that it provides innovative insights into how we can shift the education system to support the potential of all students.

Below is a synopsis of The Future of Smart, which is now available on Amazon.

“In her compelling new book, THE FUTURE OF SMART: How Our Education System Needs to Change to Help All Young People Thrive (Capucia Publishing; September 14, 2021), Ulcca Joshi Hansen, PhD, JD, draws on her education transformation and policy work, and experience as an educator, to explore how we arrived at our basic assumptions about the aims of education and how we can—and must—do better. Hansen goes beyond the usual conversation about why the conventional, factory model of school fails our children, and explores the underlying values and worldview that birthed this system as well as so many of the other systems society is critically examining now. She cites a massive shift during the Scientific Revolution that led to a dominant worldview that changed the very meaning of education. Only by fully understanding this shift, its connection to racial, social and economic injustice, and contemporary education, can we ever hope to change our education system.”