Emcees
Bringing together the people and ideas
shaping what's next for higher education.
October 14-16, 2026
Luskin Conference Center, UCLA
An invitation-only convening
PROGRAM
Conversations and ideas reshaping higher education
Explore five mainstage panels, sixteen breakout sessions across five Learning Tracks, a Poster Gallery Walk, and more. The program brings together ideas, expertise, and innovative work from Learning Lab’s grantee network and leaders across California’s three public higher education systems.
Meet Your Emcees
We’re thrilled to welcome Taiyo Inoue and Sarah Senk, co-hosts of the My Robot Teacher podcast, as emcees for INSPIRE 2026.
Bringing a sharp, curious, and engaging perspective, Taiyo and Sarah will connect big-picture ideas with on-the-ground practice, draw threads across conversations, and help bring the conference’s themes to life.
Taiyo Inoue
Professor of Mathematics, Cal Poly Maritime Academy
Co-host, My Robot Teacher
Taiyo Inoue is a professor of mathematics at Cal Poly Maritime Academy and co-host of My Robot Teacher, a podcast exploring artificial intelligence, teaching and learning, and the future of higher education. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley, specializing in low-dimensional topology and three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. At Cal Maritime, he chaired the Academic Integrity Committee and led the revision of its policy to incorporate a restorative justice perspective. He is passionate about teaching, artificial intelligence, weird music, and obscure games. He was the 2014 Puzzle Strike World Champion, an accomplishment he estimates is impressive to approximately 17 people worldwide. He lives in Davis, California, with his wife and two sons.
Sarah Senk
Professor of English, Cal Poly Maritime Academy
Co-host, My Robot Teacher
Sarah Senk is a professor of English at Cal Poly Maritime Academy and co-host of My Robot Teacher, a podcast exploring artificial intelligence, teaching and learning, and the future of higher education. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Cornell University, where she trained and taught at the Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines and developed a passion for teaching humanities-based written communication. Before joining the Cal Maritime faculty in 2016, she taught postcolonial literature and first-year seminars at the University of Hartford, experiences that sparked her interest in the potential for technology to transform teaching and learning. Her research and teaching interests include trauma and cultural memory in global English literature, speculative fiction and film, “slow disaster,” and commemoration in the digital age.
WITH SUPPORT FROM
