Sarah Hemminger
Co-Founder & CEO, Thread
As the CEO and Co-Founder, Sarah oversees major organizational decisions and the overall operations and resources of the organization. She is responsible for giving strategic direction for implementing long and short term plans that create a vision for success. She also serves as the direct liaison between the Board and the Executive Team communicating to the Board on behalf of management. Her drive to do this work rests in witnessing Thread students, who have experienced extenuating life circumstances, break the cycle of hopelessness and become responsible adults.
Sarah Hemminger co-founded Thread with her husband Ryan Hemminger in 2004. She has fourteen years of experience in nonprofit management and expertise in the development, expansion, and replication of innovative, paradigm-shifting models of mentoring. She was awarded fellowships from Ashoka, Echoing Green Foundation, Open Society Institute, and the Albert Schweitzer Fellows Program, which support social entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. In 2010, she received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University for her work on the role of the cerebellum and the primary motor cortex on the time scales of consolidation of motor memory. She received the prestigious Siebel Scholars Award for outstanding work in the field of technology and engineering. Her research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Neurophysiology, and Cerebral Cortex and she has lectured internationally on her work. She received her undergraduate degree from the Johns Hopkins University in 2002, and prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked as an engineer for Medtronic XOMED.
Sarah enjoys figure skating and teaching aerobics. She also loves to run, dance, go to Navy football games and travel.
