Bio & Archive

Dr. Landon Mascareñaz, Co-Founder
@lmascarenaz

Landon is an educator, writer, and democracy builder. As co-founder of the Open Systems Institute, he partners with leaders around the country to encourage an emerging discipline for openers everywhere. He advises The Colorado Project and Denver Democracy Summit, promotes democracy redesign through ranked choice voting as co-chair of Denver Deserves Democracy, and expands economic opportunity in southern Colorado through adapting the award-winning Emergent Campus initiative to Trinidad. He is also a founding leader of The Cornerstone Project, working to upgrade democracy infrastructure in education races across the country.

Dr. Mascareñaz is the current elected chair of the Colorado State Board for Community Colleges & Occupational Education, appointed by Colorado Governor Jared Polis. He also serves as chair of the Reisher Scholars Program, supporting students across the state to achieve their higher education goals.

Landon co-authored The Open System: Redesigning Education & Reigniting Democracy published by Harvard Education Press which was called “…a rare combination of concrete, practical strategies on how school systems can much more effectively work together with families and communities to improve policies and outcomes, and ambitious, idealistic arguments for how these strategies can help bolster our democracy.”

From 2019 to 2024 he was a Senior Partner and Vice President at the Colorado Education Initiative (CEI) where he was responsible for community-driven economic development through education and workforce partnerships in the Homegrown Talent Initiative, working in sixty rural districts across eight regions of the state. He helped assemble the Sin Fronteras Education Partnership, a coalition of local, regional, and national organizations co-creating family partnership strategies for New Mexico communities, and supported the launch of Colorado’s Statewide Family Engagement Center.

During the first six months of the COVID crisis, Landon worked with community organizations to deploy the Denver Metro Emergency Food Network, which delivered over 320 thousand free meals to families and elderly people in need. At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he worked with friends and partners to help launch Palaces for People to house refugees.

Before 2019, he worked in policy and coalition building at A+ Colorado (2017-2019), served as a department leader in the family engagement office in Denver Public Schools (2014-2017), co-designed the launch of a network of indigenous serving schools through the NACA Inspired Schools Network (2013-2014), led Teach For America–New Mexico (2007-2012), and taught first grade on the Navajo Nation (2005-2007). In 2015 he completed his doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus on boundary-spanning leadership. He is a member of the Pahara Institute, AEI, and Flamboyan fellowship programs.

Landon was born in California, grew up in Colorado, attended college in Oregon, and began his professional career in New Mexico—leading him to consider the western United States his home. He lives in Denver with his wife and enjoys traveling, ancient history, working from his office in Trinidad, and developing his meditation practice.