Founder | Education Strategist | STEM Equity Leader | Legacy Builder

Chéla S. Wallace is an award-winning educator, STEM equity leader, and school founder committed to creating learning environments where Black girls feel seen, stretched, and supported. For more than 18 years, she has built programs, led systems, and advised institutions across the country—driven by the belief that education should be a source of both solace and strength.

Her journey began in San Antonio, Texas, where she taught chemistry and launched her first afterschool STEM program for girls. That foundation led to leadership roles in Philadelphia, where she supported curriculum design across charter networks, and in New York City, where she became the inaugural Director of K–12 Science at KIPP NYC. There, Chéla led the region’s STEM vision across 18 schools, expanding robotics, data science, and computational thinking for more than 8,000 students. Under her leadership, KIPP NYC launched 31 robotics teams and secured over $1.75 million in STEM funding.

Internationally, she co-designed an innovative boarding school model for girls in Sierra Leone, presenting the proposal to government leaders in 2021. Her work consistently centers the brilliance of historically marginalized students, inspired by the legacies of Black women leaders like Shirley Chisholm, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Charlotte Hawkins Brown.

Now based in North Carolina, Chéla is the founder of Solace Rose Innovation Academy—a year-round, healing-centered, STEAM-focused public charter school for girls. Selected as an inaugural Founder’s Fellow with Great Schools NC, she brings her national experience home to the Piedmont Triad, grounding the school’s mission in the region’s history, resilience, and future.

In addition to her school leadership, Chéla is the CEO of Seeds of Faith Educational Services (SoFES), a consulting firm focused on culturally grounded, future-forward systems. She has advised school districts, nonprofits, and cultural institutions on strategic planning, emerging technologies, and culturally responsive curriculum. Her clients include the University of Chicago’s Data Science 4 Everyone, Mastery Charter Schools, the Witte Museum, and Guilford Preparatory Academy.

Chéla holds a master’s in Education Policy from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a second in Curriculum and Instruction from Our Lady of the Lake University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Virginia. In 2025, she joined the UNDP ExpRes Roster as an Artificial Intelligence Technical Expert and was selected to speak at the AI Ethics & Technology Summit hosted by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), addressing the future of AI in K–12 classrooms.

She was honored with the 2024 Changing Lives Award from the Change Our Future Foundation and named a 2023 White House Fellows Regional Finalist. From her early years as a founding science teacher to her national stage appearance at Black Girls Rock alongside Queen Latifah, Chéla S. Wallace continues to design with purpose, lead with vision, and build systems where every student can rise.