Kira is home to a community of passionate individuals driven by purpose, curiosity, and a desire to make a real difference. In this spotlight, we sat down with Meera Krishnamoorthy, who brings a unique background bridging machine learning, healthcare, and now, education. Read on to learn how her path led her to Kira—and why she's excited to help shape the future of learning with AI.
Kira: Tell us a bit about your background—what brought you to Kira, and why did this opportunity resonate with you?
Meera: I’ve long been interested in using computational tools to tackle real-world problems. That journey started in high school with habitat degradation, evolved into astronomy and autonomous systems during college, and more recently, focused on healthcare during my Ph.D.
While those fields still matter deeply to me, I’ve grown especially interested in how machine learning can improve education. Personalized learning has been a long-standing aspiration, and large language models have opened new doors for realizing it. That said, many current implementations are too easy to game—they create automation bias and missed learning moments.
Kira stood out to me because it’s tackling these challenges head-on. There’s a clear emphasis on thoughtful design and intentional friction, and that approach really resonated with me.
Kira: What are you most excited about as you start your journey here?
Meera: I’m particularly excited about working on evaluation—how we measure the impact of our products today and how we might evolve those metrics going forward.
A lot of Kira’s tools produce unstructured outputs, which are naturally harder to assess with rigor. Often, we rely on the intuition that something just feels better. But turning that intuition into concrete, quantitative insights can unlock a deeper understanding of how effective our tools really are.
Building out those evaluation frameworks—and figuring out how to measure what truly matters—is a challenge I’m eager to take on.
Kira: What’s something interesting or unique about yourself that your new colleagues might be surprised to learn?
Meera: I actually grew up in California, but I was born in New Jersey—so being back on the East Coast now feels a bit like a homecoming.
Kira: How do you see your role contributing to Kira’s mission of transforming education through AI?
Meera: I see my role as helping Kira find the right balance between innovation and real-world impact.
During my Ph.D., I worked on ML tools for clinical care—an area where new tech was often met with either skepticism or hype. That environment taught me to navigate both perspectives carefully and thoughtfully. I learned to identify which innovations had real potential and how to ensure they were meaningfully applied.
At Kira, I hope to bring that same lens—ensuring our tools don’t just push boundaries, but also provide tangible value for educators and students.
Kira: When you’re not working, what do you love doing? Any hobbies, interests, or passion projects you’d like to share?
Meera: I picked up rowing and sculling during graduate school and really fell in love with it. There’s something incredibly calming about being on the water. I’m currently looking for a club here in New Jersey or NYC so I can keep getting out there.
