"Most graduates will navigate multiple careers, often different from their field of study. Our goal is to prepare students not just for jobs but for meaningful, self-directed careers that contribute to their communities. It involves cultivating core learning practices within real-world environments, treating them with the same rigor as athletic training to achieve peak intellectual, creative, and empathetic performance"
-Tammara Anderson, Associate Dean of Experiential and Applied Learning, USC
Created in 2023, The EXL Lab is a project of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE) that believes our communities and the world are natural context for meaningful learning experiences of discovery, connections, and relationships; places where curiosity inspires engagement, imagination, and innovation. Schools and Classrooms are learning destinations for convening, communicating, co-creating, and sharing.
The EXL LAB curates, creates and implements experiential learning tools, methods, and practices and experiences to partner schools and extra-curricular organizations to support student success and fulfillment in their personal, academic, and professional lives The EXL Lab engages academic institutions, K-12 partners and non-academic thought leaders and companies to create dynamic, interdisciplinary, project-based, “learning by doing,” inter-curricular and extracurricular experiences for students in higher education and underserved middle- and high-schools, with focus on Los Angeles and Southern California.
Robert Gould
Founder & Director
Throughout his diverse career in the arts and education, Robert Gould has been involved with the development, creation, and production of visuals, design and story for all media and education applications. Robert Gould has been involved with progressive education programs and organizations for over 30 years and consults for the USC Dornsife Office of Experiential & Applied Learning (EXL) as the creator and Director of EXL Learning Lab @ USC
Robert was Vice President of Education First!, an entertainment based non-profit that supported progressive programs in education. He was part of the founding team that created the charter Accelerated School in South LA and Yoga Ed, the premiere international yoga in schools’ program. In 1999 Robert formed Imaginosis, a transmedia arts company that works with visual artists and writers to collaboratively create and strategically develop entertainment intellectual properties that have broad, transmedia applications while maintaining the integrity of the creator's original vision. Robert is President of Imaginosis Media Design that provides concept, art direction and story narrative and themed attraction and experience design services to international themed entertainment, event production and media companies. He also serves as US Ambassador and education consultant for Lucca Comics & Games, the second largest pop culture festival in the world. Robert makes his home in Eugene, Oregon.
Kiel Shaub, PhD
Academic Curator
Kiel Shaub is a passionate educator, curriculum designer, and published scholar with over a decade of research and teaching experience at the university level.
As Academic Curator for the EXL Lab, Kiel develops, designs, and leads dynamic experiential and maker-focused programs and events at the University of Southern California and affiliated high schools and middle schools in the Los Angeles area. Kiel is also a Lecturer in the University of Southern California’s Department of Physical Education & Mind Body Health, where he designs and teaches dynamic experiential learning courses at the intersection of mind-body health, sustainability, and creative expression. Previously, Kiel taught as a lecturer in UCLA’s English Department, where he received his Ph.D. in 2020. His literary research, focusing on Romanticism, aesthetics, and the history of criticism, has appeared or is forthcoming in William Blake’s Gothic Imagination, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Romanticism, The Keats-Shelley Journal, and Female Voices, 1770-1830.
Tammara Anderson
Associate dean of experiential and applied learning, usc dornsife
Tammara “Tammy” Seabrook Anderson is a double alumna of the University of Southern California, having received her Bachelor of Science degree from the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and a Master of Science degree from the Rossier School of Education.
In 1981, Tammy began her professional career with the Joint Educational Project (JEP) at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. JEP is one of the oldest and largest service-learning programs in the country. In 2002 she became its Executive Director with responsibility for the supervision of 8 full time staff and over 80 part time grad/undergrad student employees. Annually, this group of talented and dedicated staff contribute each semester to the successful training and placement of approximately 2000 USC students in 70 local sites, including elementary, secondary, charter, and parochial schools, governmental, social service agencies, and hospitals/clinics. Through these community assignments, students connect their university courses with field experience that enriches their education and fosters a strong sense of civic responsibility. While at JEP, Tammy raised over 3 million dollars for the program, including two one million-dollar endowments; making JEP one of the few service-learning programs in the country to be endowed. For the last 43 years, Tammy has been a leader in experiential/service-learning education, developing university/community programs that prove that “service is education.” In 1987, Tammy was elected to the board of directors of the National Society of Internships and Experiential Education, making her one of the youngest and the first African American to join the board. In 2002, Tammy co-founded the Los Angeles Higher Education Partnership (LAHEP) – a consortium of 12 colleges and universities in the city whose primary initiative is to increase opportunities for college and university students to actively engage in service projects that enhance quality of life for all citizens of Los Angeles, primarily through curriculum related initiatives such as volunteer experiences, community service-learning, and internships. In 2004, Tammy was honored with the USC President’s Award for Staff Achievement followed by the Dornsife College’s Outstanding Staff Achievement Award in 2007. In 2010, USC’s Black Alumni Organization presented her with the Barbara Solomon Faculty/Staff Award. In 2017, Tammy was named Associate Dean of Experiential and Applied Learning in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at USC. In this position, she established a new office that brings together some of Dornsife’s most dynamic and iconic experiential learning programs and provides strategic direction and planning, serves as a hub for best practice, seeds innovation, and supports faculty engaged in experiential learning. Service is an integral part of Tammy’s life as she has served on various non-profit boards including California Hospital Medical Center, the RightWay Foundation, and Ednovate.
Ani Manavyan
Team Member
Ani is dedicated to building strategic partnerships that drive meaningful impact in education, philanthropy, and social good. As an Associate Director of University Corporate and Foundation Relations at Stanford University, she fosters collaborations with funders in the life and social sciences, as well as with corporate leaders and philanthropists, to advance key initiatives.
Prior to her current role, she spent nearly a decade at the University of Southern California, where she helped secure funding for scholarships, graduate fellowships, and programs supporting underrepresented students. Beyond the university setting, she has helped international education organizations and served as a Pro-Bono Consultant for Taproot Foundation, advising nonprofits across civil rights, international development, urban planning, and healthcare. Her work has focused on strengthening fundraising strategies and ensuring long-term financial sustainability for mission-driven organizations. Ani holds a Master of Public Administration from the USC Price School of Public Policy.
Advisory Board
Tammara Anderson
USC Dornsife, Associate Dean
Gretchen Coss
Position / Role
Michelle Swanson
Position / Role
Ani Manavyan
Team Member
Brianna Casiano
Educational Leader
Steven L. Lamy
Professor Emeritus
Most graduates will navigate multiple careers, often different from their field of study. Our goal is to prepare students not just for jobs but for meaningful, self-directed careers that contribute to their communities. It involves cultivating core learning practices within real-world environments, treating them with the same rigor as athletic training to achieve peak intellectual, creative, and empathetic performance
Created in 2023, The EXL Lab is a project of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE) that believes our communities and the world are natural context for meaningful learning experiences of discovery, connections, and relationships; places where curiosity inspires engagement, imagination, and innovation. Schools and Classrooms are learning destinations for convening, communicating, co-creating, and sharing.
The EXL LAB curates, creates and implements experiential learning tools, methods, and practices and experiences to partner schools and extra-curricular organizations to support student success and fulfillment in their personal, academic, and professional lives The EXL Lab engages academic institutions, K-12 partners and non-academic thought leaders and companies to create dynamic, interdisciplinary, project-based, “learning by doing,” inter-curricular and extracurricular experiences for students in higher education and underserved middle- and high-schools, with focus on Los Angeles and Southern California.