India Hui & Emma Hiza

India Hui is the founding school leader of the Indianapolis campus of Thrival Academy, a study abroad public high school providing students from underserved communities access to personalized and culturally immersive education.  India joins Emma Hiza, a 2016 Innovation School Fellow and the co-founder and executive director of Thrival Academy.

The Thrival Academy model is a one-year, publicly-funded, credit-bearing study abroad experience split into three parts: two months in Indianapolis pre-departure, five months of in-country study and return and capstone completion for the final two months of the academic year.  Their proposed school is operating a pilot program with Indianapolis Public School during the 2017-2018 school year.

Teachers at Thrival Academy-Indianapolis will be advisors who work individually with students to help them develop personal learning plans and provide academic content.  The school will utilize project-based learning, with small group projects focused on content mastery and longer projects grounded in the context of the international community utilizing design thinking to identify and address a problem.

The school will feature blended learning, with students participating in credit-bearing, self-paced, virtual courses. The advisors supplement this learning with individualized tutoring and projects.  Additionally, while abroad, students engage in culturally immersive internships in the international community two days per week.

Emma is an experienced educator, curriculum designer and program director who has worked extensively in education and public health both domestically and overseas. Her work includes classroom instruction, curriculum design and teacher training across various contexts in the U.S, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Kenya. She has worked in public education in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC and internationally with Partners In Health, the Asian University for Women and the McKinsey Social Initiative. She earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees from John Hopkins University and a master’s degree from Arcadia University.

India Hui is has spent the past several years teaching in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s School Turnaround Leaders Institute, earned a MS in Educational Leadership from IUPUI’s Urban Principalship Program, and received a BS in Education from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is a graduate of Warren Central High School.