We’re a team of friends and educators from a wide array of backgrounds and institutions who’ve come together to create Experience Lab. We’re on a mission to establish experience as a more credible and celebrated part of higher education and society as a whole. We’re focused on supporting bright students of all backgrounds during their most pivotal moments.
A shared Passion for Education
The Team
Matt Meltzer
Co-Director
In May 2003, Matt graduated summa cum laude from Penn with a double major, and no job. After traveling throughout South America for four months, Matt found work teaching english to corporate executives and interned at a local newspaper in Buenos Aires. His experience abroad changed Matt’s career trajectory, and his life. Later that year, Matt started law school at Northwestern University as a fluent Spanish-speaker and went on to develop a niche litigation practice representing Latin American companies as a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. In 2013, still thinking back to his global experience after college, Matt founded Sage Corps, a global entrepreneurship program that sends top college students abroad to intern with startups. His work with Sage Corps and his friendship with Victor led them to co-create Experience Lab to mesh the best parts of learning and global experience. When he isn’t working with students and global startups, Matt spends his time chasing his three kids with his incredibly patient and loving wife.
Matt Meltzer
Co-Director
Victor Saad
Co-Director
In 2012, after five years of working with middle school and high school students, Victor became curious about pursuing an MBA. But the options and costs didn’t quite fit. So he designed his own “Master’s” by embarking upon 12 projects in 12 months. He called his educational endeavor the Leap Year Project and his experiences culminated when he staged his graduation at a local TEDx and published a book of stories about people learning through risk. He later launched Experience Institute, an organization that helps college students and career professionals learn & grow through short-term, real-world experiences. Victor’s work has led him into collaborations with Stanford, Google, Leo Burnett, and a friendship with Matt Meltzer of Sage Corps – which led to the start of Experience Lab. In 2015, Victor was inducted into Forbes30Under30 for his work in education, and in 2017 joined the team at Stanford’s School of Engineering as a Lecturer in Design, helping students reimagine their learning through experience.
Victor Saad
Co-Director
Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom
Curriculum Director
As Curriculum Director, Aaron provides leadership and coordination for all of Experience Lab’s educational programming. Previously, Aaron supported the development of Henry Ford Learning Institute’s K-12 core curriculum and related professional development programs for teachers, partners, and educational communities. Prior to joining HFLI in 2007, Aaron was a founding advisor/teacher at University Preparatory High School in Detroit, a charter school in the Big Picture network. Aaron earned a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Michigan’s Residential College in 1995 and an MA in Education and his secondary Teacher Certification from the University of Michigan in 2000. He also leads all programming efforts for Experience Institute.
Aaron Wilson-Ahlstrom
Curriculum Director
Tyler Fowler
Digital Marketing & Storytelling Program Lead
Across advertising productions and influencer marketing initiatives, Tyler has managed +400 content creation campaigns for brands ranging from startups making their first sale, to Fortune 50 companies trying to keep an edge on their competition. As a stand up comedian and content creator Tyler has executive produced film and audio productions and Co-founded Team Us Comedy, a performance and training group that helps teams be more creative and collaborative.
Tyler Fowler
Digital Marketing & Storytelling Program Lead
Brian Bar
Business Development Program Lead
Brian is the founder and CEO of Victory Lap, a Chicago-based company that provides industry-leading sales training to individuals and companies, and helps companies connect with SDR/BDR talent. Brian honed his skills in sales training at Groupon, where he created and ran the Sales Onboarding Department. In addition to running Victory Lap and serving as an instructor in Business Development and Sales for Experience Lab, Brian is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with VentureSCALE.
Brian Bar
Business Development Program Lead
Allen Wolff
Recruitment Manager
Allen serves as Recruitment Manager for Experience Lab at Penn and Director of China Programs for Sage Corps, introducing global internship abroad opportunities to Chinese university students. Since studying abroad in Shanghai over a decade ago, Allen has worked continuously as a bridge-builder between the world's two largest economies, helping both individuals and corporates find their footing in the U.S. and China, respectively. Allen holds a degree in Political Science from Miami University and is fluent in Mandarin.
Allen Wolff
Recruitment Manager
Faith Anderson
Digital Marketing Instructor
Faith is a Chicago-based digital marketing specialist, entrepreneur, and startup strategist. In 2015, she founded DBC Brand and began managing managing the online presences of emerging performers through content development and web design. She then transitioned to full-time digital marketing work for grammy-nominated artists and local Chicago mid-sized businesses. She deepened her digital marketing/digital strategy skills through projects with startup accelerator Workbox Company, the National Hellenic Museum, and Chicago’s leading real estate development firm, Farpoint Development LLC.
Faith Anderson
Digital Marketing Instructor
Hayley Darden
Digital Marketing Instructor
Hayley is a leader on the Brand and Content team at Invisible, an outsourcing-automation hybrid that helps companies run their operations more efficiently. She’s worked for more than a decade now to help companies recruit, onboard, and develop the talent of their employees, always with a passion for creating workspaces that support collaboration, creativity, and a connection to people’s passions. In the process, she’s read 20,000+ resumes and hired 200+ people. She loves helping people find what gives them life, and connect that to a meaningful role in the organization. Ask her about comedy, faith, or how she turns pet peeves into business ideas.
Hayley Darden
Digital Marketing Instructor
Aana Leech
Digital Marketing Instructor
Aana is VP of Marketing & Customer Experience at Popular Pays, an all-in-one influencer marketing and creator management software for brands and agencies. Aana brings her experience in content development, account management, and business strategy to her multi-faceted role, helping Popular Pays develop and implement new offerings for customers, and ensuring great customer experience along the way. Ask her about her 3 years as a teacher in New Orleans with Teach for America, or playing on national championship volleyball teams while in college at Duke.
Aana Leech
Digital Marketing Instructor
Bill Fetter
Marketing Operations
Bill founded UnFettered Marketing, a marketing and sales consultancy in 2019 after more than 25 years working in corporate marketing and sales roles, most recently focusing on deployment of technology to customer journeys.
Bill manages the Experience Lab website, and all the marketing tech that helps get the team’s fantastic content in front of the right people at the right time.
A committed lifelong learner and avid global traveler, Bill is a huge advocate for the ability of experiences (especially ones that stretch and challenge) to grow our understanding of ourselves and others.
Bill Fetter
Marketing Operations
Megan Bartelt
Field Experiences and Industry Partners
Megan was born and raised in the Chicago ‘burbs, but eventually figured out that the world was a little bigger than having Portillo’s for lunch all the time. During her undergrad & grad career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she jumped on as many planes as possible to head all over the world. Now she’s settled back in Chicago (still eating Portillo’s) and is dedicated to helping students navigate their professional journeys through work and travel. In her free time, Megan can be found by the beach or practicing Spanish.
Megan Bartelt
Field Experiences & Industry Partners
Phoebe Sajor
Content Producer
Phoebe is a Southern California based creative with a love for telling stories. A people-person and marketer, she is passionate about bringing a human touch to the content and writing she produces. She helps create and curate content for Ei and Experience Lab’s social platforms, and helps write and run Experience Lab’s blog. Phoebe is also a filmmaker and podcast producer with a background in entertainment and education and recently finished her B.A. in Sociology from UCLA. In her free time, she loves to write, meet new people, eat Vietnamese food, and hang out with her dogs.
Phoebe Sajor
Content Producer
About Us
We Believe
We started Experience Lab to solve a problem we saw with the higher education — students need access to launch their careers through experience.
We hold the following core beliefs:
Experience is for everyone
This type of learning is not limited to certain ages, socioeconomic classes, or seasons of time. Experience is for anyone, anywhere. It is the great leveler of society, excluding no one and understood by everyone.
Experience is transformative
One of the most powerful ways to learn is by doing – by placing ourselves in the situations and with the people who are aiming to solve real world challenges.
Experience should be purposeful and intentional
Learning through experience is not accidental, it should be purposeful and intentional, in order to be more productive and meaningful.
Experience necessitates risk
Many of life’s transformative lessons come from being in a new situation – where you don’t know the right answer or there isn’t a right answer. Those are the places where you’ve taken a leap over the unknown and are aiming for a better place. You have to have faith in yourself and the things that moved you to take that leap.
Experience requires reflection
We don’t only learn by doing. Reflection is the fruit of action – it’s what we take away after planting that nourishes us and those around us. Our ability to examine where we’ve been shapes our ability to see where we might go.
Experience enables storytelling
Our actions set the stage for the compelling stories we share with friends, family, peers, and heroes. Those stories define our future relationships, careers, and perspectives on the world and ourselves. If we take the time to craft and tell them well, they lead to our very best places.
Experience is better together
Community multiplies the lessons we learn. With every new set of eyes, our experiences become exponentially more meaningful, both personally and to those around us. These are a few things that have been guiding us at Experience Lab, but if you want to geek out about both the history and future of experience and learning, check out this summary from Deloitte, this article from Harvard Business Review, or John Dewey’s classic text on Experience and Education.
Underlying it All
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
At Experience Lab, we are committed to including voices of all backgrounds with regards to gender, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and sexual orientation. We believe that our community is strongest when all voices are represented. We do not tolerate discrimination or microagressions of any kind. We ensure that our learning and sharing spaces are safe and welcoming at all times. Read our full policy here.
Weekly Updates
Experience Lab Blog
Every week we share vital information with our cohorts to help them along their way, with insights into industry best-practices, practical job-search information, book suggestions, and motivational reads.
Interested in learning more
about EXP.LAB?
OUR MISSION
Establish experience as a credible form of learning and equip students with the tools to transform our world with an inventive spirit.