Joe Rayfus

Joe is a former teacher and school leader with over two decades of classroom experience, having served as an Art Teacher, an Assistant Principal, Year Head, and Home School Community Liaison Coordinator. He is currently the Director of Education, Sales and Business Development for the EU with Merlyn for Education, where he coordinated the largest pilot of voice-enabled AI classroom assistants outside North America, involving 50 Irish schools and 300 teachers.

Joe co-authored the position paper Towards a Pedagogy-First National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Education with Professor Barrie Bennett, with whom he is also co-writing a book on pedagogy-first AI. A delegate to ETUCE for the TUI and member of the Responsible AI for Learners advisory body, Joe won the Most Ethical Use of AI Award (Ulster University, 2025) and the inaugural ETBI Excellence in Education Award.