Jeff Ward is the founder and lead instructor of Coder Kids. Jeff started teaching in the Houston area with Teach for America in 2009. In 2014, he earned his M.Ed. from the University of Houston and in 2016 earned his MBA from Rice University.

Jeff has taught for 8 years in Houston schools in bilingual and ESL classrooms. Along the way, he discovered great resources like Hour of Code, Khan Academy, and LEGO Robotics, which inspired him to pursue his interest in teaching kids in creative ways. The educational benefits of coding, combined with Jeff's undying love of recess, is the inspiration behind Coder Kids.

James Thornock graduated from the University of Houston in May of 2017. He has spent the last year working as a full time 7th grade Texas History teacher in Cy-Fair ISD. He has a passion for education, and loves to empower those he teaches.

He is excited to work at Coder Kids to help students attain skills, and thinking processes that they can use for the rest of their lives.

Emerson Haynes is an undergraduate student at University of Houston majoring in Computer Information Systems. He has years of experience teaching as a Boy Scout, heading groups of younger boy scouts and developing leadership skills. With these skills he earned his Eagle Scout Award in 2015. He enjoys learning and continuing his education through Hackathons and personal projects. He is also self-taught in several languages such as Python and JavaScript.

Emerson enjoys working at Coder Kids because the program combines the ability to introduce kids to computer science in a creative way, and the opportunity to refine skills that he will be using in his professional career.

Sergio Mendoza is an undergraduate student at the University of Houston majoring in Computer Science. He has many years of experience teaching and tutoring children in an after school program named Zenith and Harmony Science Academy middle school. He has two loves, soccer and coding, and he enjoys teaching others how to play soccer and code.

Matthew Holiman finished his Associates degree in 2013 and always knew he would return to education. Currently, Matthew is finishing his Accounting degree at Sam Houston State University, and will graduate Spring 2019. Afterwards he plans on pursuing the CPA path. Matthew worked at Lonestar College for three years in the Assistive Technology Lab, where he initially started as a scribe. He emphasizes critical thinking in his approaches. Some of his interests include media, basketball, cooking and his dog Bowser.

Colton Behannon is an undergraduate student at the University of Houston studying MIS. He has years of experience tutoring and enjoys working with people and learning new things.
Colton enjoys working at Coder Kids as it allows him to teach others while also learning some things himself along the way!

Tiffany Tabourne is an undergraduate student at The University of Texas at San Antonio majoring in computer science. She's had an interest in computer science ever since she took her first promgramming class sophomore year in highschool, and loves to spread her passion to others.

In her free time, she enjoys competing with the UTSA Collegiate Triathlon Team, learning languages, being outdoors, and cooking.

Arthur Muñoz earned his B.A. in 2009 and Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) in 2010 from Austin College in Sherman, Texas. He taught Mathematics in the Greater Houston Area from 2012 to 2017, and is currently an Algebra teacher in Denison, Texas.  

As as firm believer in "learning by doing," Arthur used his teaching experience to simultaneously learn coding while volunteering at Coder Kids. In 2016, Arthur became Texas Certified in 8-12 Computer Science, and is a pioneer in teaching AP Computer Science Principles. 

Dean

Reed Brace is a Junior at Trinity University in San Antonio. At Trinity, Reed studies Computer Science. A Houston native, Reed has lived in Houston his entire life. Reed enjoys programming and teaching, at Coder Kids he gets to do both! Besides Computer Science, Reed enjoys History and Politics. In his free time, Reed enjoys reading, skateboarding, and playing with his dogs and cats.

Katelyn McMillin is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio majoring in Computer Science.

She has experience creating and facilitating study sessions from her role as a Supplemental Instruction Leader at her college. She became interested in computer programming when she took a class her senior year of high school.

Kevin McNair is an undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University, where he is majoring in Computer Science. He has been interested in computers and coding since his first class in high school, and loves to see others interested as well. Kevin enjoys working at Coder Kids because it allows him to teach the foundations to an important skill that is becoming more and more relevant everyday.  Coder Kids is rewarding because he gets to strengthen his coding and logic fundamentals while also getting to watch the next generation of students become interested in his favorite subject. Kevin is passionate about technology's impact on future society. He believes that coding will become an in-demand skill as technology becomes more incorporated into people's everyday lives.

In his free time, Kevin enjoys playing videogames, spending time with friends, weightlifting, and watching football, basketball and soccer.

Cullen Gray is an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas studying Mechanical and Energy Engineering. He is graduating Spring of 2019. He has been programming for the past few years and gained his interest in the subject in similar curriculum in middle and high school.

During the summer, Cullen teaches kids at a cooking camp in a locally-sourced-food catering restaurant. 

David Martinez is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is majoring in Software Engineering and minoring in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. David has had previous tutoring experience and enjoys programming in front-end and back-end languages.

Apart from loving to work at Coder Kids, David enjoys learning different concepts from different fields of interest, such as: Marketing, Business Administration, and Accounting.