Meet Our Amazing Team

Alisha N. Sparks, owner and Principal of AN Sparks, LLC, has significant experience in strategic planning, education, program management and corporate and non-profit event planning and coordination. During her tenure as an employee with Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools), she served as Program Director for Baltimore Freedom Schools, Program Coordinator for Digital Harbor High School’s High School Prep Program and served as the lead for the City Schools’ 2012 Middle and High School Choice Fair. As the lead for 2012 Middle and High School Choice Fair, Ms. Sparks successfully led the team to host the Fair in a new venue and within a new timeline. Additionally, Alisha coordinated the district’s recruitment and enrollment process for approximately 12,000 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten seats while training more than 100 employees and community partners regarding the process.  

Prior to joining the City Schools’ team, Ms. Sparks served as Director of K-12 Programs at the Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) where her duties included directing an approximately million dollar grant program and planning Computer Mania Day, an annual event for up to 1000 middle students, parents, and teachers. Alisha’s strong leadership, organizational, interpersonal and project management skills along with her direct experience allow her to skillfully and thoroughly serve her clients needs. 

An accomplished educator with more than 20 years experience in both formal and informal education, leadership, program management and coordination. She currently serves as the Baltimore Programs Director in the Center for Educational Outreach at Johns Hopkins University within the Whiting School of Engineering. In her role, she oversees STEM outreach opportunities in the local Baltimore community, specifically seeking to engage Hopkins faculty and students in the outreach. Prior to serving as the Baltimore Programs Director, she led the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools, a $7.4 million grant program, which led to a new City schools’ Kindergarten – 5^th grade science/STEM curriculum, sustainable content-based professional development for teachers, student-led, inquiry-based projects in afterschool programming and annual community events called STEM Showcases.

Additionally, she had done extensive work in her local community and abroad by serving with organizations such as Akoben Foundation, Inc., In His Presence Ministries, W. J. Thompson, Jr. Ministries, Girl Scouts of Central Maryland and the International Partnership for Service Learning in Manila, the Philippines. 

Her passion is working with young people to help them to succeed and organization who work with and/or support them.. Alisha firmly believes that "it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men [and women]" as stated by Frederick Douglas. She is committed to training up children in the way that they should go so that when they are old, they will not depart from it as instructed in Proverbs 22:6.

Alisha is a proud alumna of Voorhees College (Denmark, SC), the University of Maryland Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD), and Notre Dame of Maryland University where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, Master of Arts in Instructional Systems Development with a concentration in secondary mathematics, and Administration and Supervision certification, respectively. She holds an Advanced Professional Certification in an Admin I endorsement in Secondary Mathematics in the state of Maryland.