Rotunda Floyd-Cooper
Rotunda Floyd-Cooper joined Wallace in May 2023. She leads the education leadership unit and the interdisciplinary education leadership strategy team, which comprises representatives from the foundation’s program, research, and communications units. Floyd-Cooper also oversees the Equity-Centered Pipeline Initiative, a $102-million effort to explore how to build comprehensive, aligned principal pipelines that can produce school leaders capable of advancing their district’s vision of equity—along with the Principal Pipeline Learning Community and other projects.
Before coming to Wallace, Floyd-Cooper was associate superintendent of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools, providing instructional leadership coaching and development for principal supervisors, monitoring school improvement planning processes for more than 70 schools, and serving on a team designing the district’s professional learning system for current and aspiring leaders. Previously, she had served as director of learning and achievement for the district, providing coaching and instructional leadership support to 24 principals and their leadership teams.
Her other leadership roles in three districts in Maryland included assistant principal, director of curriculum innovation, school improvement specialist, and principal. Floyd-Cooper began her career in education as a math teacher in Miami-Dade County Public Schools district. She later joined the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where she was the executive director for the Maryland Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement initiative, a statewide effort to spark young people’s interest in STEM education, providing an accessible, inclusive, and nurturing environment in afterschool and other settings for students grades 3-12 regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
She holds an Ed.D. from the University of Maryland, an M.S. in applied mathematics from Virginia Tech, an M.Ed. from Virginia State University, and a B.S. from Hampton University. Rotunda is an avid music fan and names Beyoncé as her favorite artist, having seen her in concert 15 times in unique cities (and countries!) over the course of eight world tours.
