Team
George Levasser
Founder
Founder of The Impending Bloom Project, a New York State 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and Emergent Elements Inc. Based in Astoria, Queens, New York.
Yu-Jen Chen
Artistic Director
Motion designer, illustrator, and 3D artist with an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. Her client work spans Microsoft, the Empire State Building, and Google. She leads the visual identity of The Impending Bloom Project.
Fatih Emin Öge
Lead Technology Engineer
Software engineer with a background in full-stack development, cloud infrastructure (AWS), containerization, and machine learning. Currently at FairMoney and previously at Papara, a leading Turkish fintech platform.
Zeynep Özakat
B.O.S.S. Academy Instructor
Zeynep Özakat is an educator with teaching experience at Syracuse University and ARALIA Education Technology. She brings strong problem-solving and organizational skills to her work, and now teaches at B.O.S.S. Academy, guiding students as they learn to direct AI tools and build real technology projects.
Alicia Ezat
B.O.S.S. Academy Instructor
Alicia Ezat is a seasoned educator with over a decade of experience teaching young children in both public and private school systems. Throughout her career, Alicia has successfully designed and implemented student-centered curricula that foster both academic growth and social-emotional development. Her diverse background allows her to adapt to various learning needs, partnering closely with families to build a strong foundation for every child's lifelong education.
Advisors
Chris Lanoue
Advisory Board
Senior full-stack engineer and Sr. Principal Product Engineer at Mission Lane with deep expertise in Next.js, React, and Tailwind CSS. He holds two U.S. patents in data visualization and virtual reality, and mentors students through FIRST Robotics.
Michael Wehar, Ph.D.
Advisory Board
Visiting Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College with a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University at Buffalo and degrees in Mathematical Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University. His research spans automata, grammars, and expression matching — work that bridges computer science, mathematics, and linguistics. Known for exceptional mentorship of students at all levels.
Selina Armstrong
Advisory Board
With 37 years of dedicated service in public primary and secondary education, Selina Armstrong has built a distinguished career rooted in an unwavering commitment to student success and academic excellence. For nearly four decades in the classroom, she has remained driven by the belief that every day offers a unique opportunity to inspire young minds, ignite lifelong passions, and guide future generations.
Our Mission
The Impending Bloom Project is built on a single foundational belief: when you change what people can see, you change what people pursue. And when enough people pursue something different, systems change.
We pursue this belief across four interconnected programs — educating young people in systems thinking, preparing sustainability professionals to analyze and act on social and environmental value, developing tools that make that value visible and measurable, and supporting communities in shaping the systems they live within.
We do not believe change happens through any single intervention. We believe it emerges — from many actors, across many scales, each seeing a little more clearly. Our role is to accelerate that emergence. To cultivate the conditions in which something new can bloom.
Want to accelerate this work? Support the mission →