Staffed to match the scope of your project.

Dr. Alyson Lerma

Founder + Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Alyson Lerma is the founder of Education Foundations, LLC, building on more than two decades of experience across the classroom, district, and state levels of public education. Her career spans service as a Spanish and special education teacher, District Supervisor of World Languages and ESL, State Director of ESEA and IDEA Monitoring at the Tennessee Department of Education, and Director of Grants at both Metro Nashville Public Schools and KIPP Nashville, where she has led teams managing portfolios exceeding $500 million and secured more than $30 million in competitive awards since July 2022.

Her work spans school types and sectors: she has partnered with public charter schools and charter management organizations on authorization and compliance, brings direct experience with equitable services to non-public schools, and has served as an expert witness in federal and state litigation involving federal education funding. She has served as adjunct faculty at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College and is a founding member and former elected Vice President of the Tennessee Association of Federal Programs Administrators (TAFPA). A team member of the Southeast Region 5 Comprehensive Center and a published, paid contributing author with Salem Press, she has presented at the National ESEA Conference and the BELMAS international conference in Cardiff, Wales, and serves as a peer reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education. Her work is grounded in the belief that every student, regardless of geography or school type, deserves leaders with the resources and knowledge to support meaningful outcomes.

Email: alerma@edfoundations.com

Bridgett Carwile

Senior Associate

Bridgett Carwile brings more than 28 years of experience in PK–12 education, with leadership experience at the school, district, and state levels. She currently serves as the Chief Academic Officer and Federal Programs Supervisor for Putnam County Schools in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Prior to joining Putnam County Schools, Bridgett served as a regional ESEA and IDEA consultant with the Tennessee Department of Education, supporting districts and schools across the state through technical assistance, program guidance, and compliance monitoring.

Bridgett began her career in rural Overton County, Tennessee, where she served as a teacher, principal, and district supervisor. As a principal, she was recognized for her hands-on leadership, commitment to building a collaborative school culture, strengthening instructional practices, and helping drive meaningful gains in student achievement.

At the district level, Bridgett provided leadership in curriculum, assessment, instructional support, budgeting, and family engagement. She worked closely with school teams and community stakeholders to implement strategic initiatives designed to strengthen instruction and improve academic outcomes across the district.

Bridgett has served on the board of the Tennessee Association of Federal Programs Administrators (TAFPA) since the organization's inception in 2020. In 2026, she was honored as the inaugural recipient of TAFPA's Renee Palakovic Leadership Award, recognizing her leadership and contributions to federal programs and public education.

Dr. Ephraim Makuve

Chief Technology Officer + Chief Software Engineer

Dr. Ephraim Makuve serves as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Software Engineer for Education Foundations, bringing more than 30 years of experience in information technology, software development, systems analysis, and business process improvement across industries including gaming, healthcare, and education.

His work focuses on improving operational efficiency through the design of integrated technology systems that replace fragmented and manual processes. A particular area of expertise is transforming information that traditionally resides across spreadsheets, Word documents, PDFs, email workflows, and disconnected software platforms into structured relational databases and secure web-based applications that make information easier to access, manage, analyze, and act upon.

Dr. Makuve specializes in designing applications that support the full lifecycle of organizational and grant management, including grant administration, budgeting, expense tracking, reimbursements, compliance monitoring, document management, reporting, and performance measurement. Within the charter school environment, his approach extends beyond individual applications to creating connected systems that bring together functions such as human resources, finance and accounting, grants management, purchasing, compliance, governance, enrollment and student-related data, operational reporting, and board-level oversight.

A central component of his work is developing dashboards and key performance indicators that convert complex organizational data into meaningful information for school leaders, administrators, boards, and other stakeholders. By connecting data across departments, these systems provide a more complete view of organizational performance and allow leaders to identify trends, risks, inefficiencies, and opportunities more quickly.

In addition to software engineering, Dr. Makuve has extensive experience in business process analysis, examining how work moves through an organization and identifying opportunities to eliminate duplication, reduce administrative burden, automate repetitive tasks, and improve accountability. His goal is to help organizations accomplish more with fewer unnecessary manual processes while improving the quality and availability of information used for decision-making.

Dr. Makuve holds degrees in Management Information Systems and Computer Science, a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Healthcare Administration, and a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. His multidisciplinary background allows him to approach technology not simply as a software problem, but as a combination of people, processes, data, operations, and organizational strategy.

Cecilia Lin

Consultant

Cecilia Lin is an education and grants professional with experience across the full grant lifecycle, including federal grant review, proposal development, compliance, monitoring preparedness, program evaluation, and post-award support. She currently supports Education Foundations as a consultant on charter school projects, including authorization, charter school start-up, and CSP grant monitoring preparedness. Cecilia has also served as a federal and state grant reviewer for programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Labor, AmeriCorps, and the State Entity Charter Schools Program.

Cecilia holds a Master of Education in International Education Policy and Management from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Science in Design Innovation from Loughborough University, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Digital Media Technology from Beijing University of Technology.