Our Founder

Anne Heberger Marino

Anne has been creating dynamic, memorable, curiosity-driven workshops and conferences  for top-notch researchers since 2006.  Lean-to Collaborations combines her experience as a senior program director, science facilitator, evaluator, and team coach to create conditions for vividly interconnected research.  She calls it “beyond science as usual”.

 

"You're like a social worker for scientists!"

While working at the Academies, a committee member once exclaimed,  “You’re like a social worker for scientists!”  That’s a pretty accurate description.  (The committee member didn’t realize it, but Anne really does have a Master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania.)

Lean-to Collaborations builds on Anne’s 12-year career at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine as a senior program director and program officer for the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI) – a $15 year, $40 million interdisciplinary team-based conference and grants program.   She is co-author of Collaborations of Consequence – the official summary of NAKFI’s history, model, and results- published in 2018 by National Academies Press.

 

Evaluating, facilitating,  and convening, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and convergence research teams have been the focus of Anne’s work for 20 years- since her first research position at Cornell University.  Her training in facilitation and awareness-based systems change was inspired by the needs of researchers she encountered during her career.  Anne uses techniques, tools, and experiences from the Art of Hosting, Theory U, World Cafe’, and systemic team coaching in her client engagements.

Anne is Membership Chair for the International Network for the Science of Team Science, a member of the International Association of Facilitators, a Lifetime Member of Girls Scouts of the USA, and volunteers as a coach for Girls on the Run.  

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our mission

to increase our individual and collective capacity to solve humanity’s interconnected challenges.

our values

Praise from Clients

“Anne’s skillset, generosity, and competence have kept us moving forward. She is schooled in team dynamics and operational procedures. I have hired, fired, and contracted with hundreds of individuals and businesses. She’s been essential.”

“The workshop promoted conditions for researchers belonging to different fields & with different expertise to discuss at length about transformative, big picture concepts, methods, and ideas that could impact multiple fields of science”.

We've worked with

The Extended Team

Two adults and a child on top of a mountain

Lean-to Collaborations is a woman-owned, family business.  Here we are in 2020 (briefly unmasked) atop Maine’s highest peak, Mount Katahdin.  Yes, we stayed in a lean-to. 

Land Acknowledgement

Lean-to Collaborations is headquartered in Brunswick, Maine which was settled on the traditional territory of the Wabanaki Confederacy. We recognize and honor the current Tribes who comprise the Wabanaki Confederacy—the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Micmac peoples—who have stewarded this land throughout the generations.  We respect the traditional values of these Tribes and affirm their inherent sovereignty in this territory. We support their efforts for land and water protection and restoration, and for cultural healing and recovery.