About Us
Fireline Science is an applied software R&D company building educational products and AI infrastructure for underserved communities. Founded in 2019 by Dr. Collin Sellman, our mission combines decades of product development and data science expertise with a commitment to public service rooted in almost a decade as a wildland firefighter with the US Forest Service.
Dr. Sellman brings deep experience from technology, academic research, and fieldwork. As former Director of Data Science and Learning Analytics at Pearson's K12 Learning Services division, he led teams developing analytical and machine learning products for digital curriculum platforms serving millions of students—including adaptive learning algorithms and simulation environments. His earlier career in telecommunications product development, where he holds a patent for network diagnostic systems, informs Fireline's infrastructure-first engineering philosophy. He continues on the information systems faculty at Arizona State University, teaching data analytics and big data courses in the MBA and MSBA programs while publishing research on educational data science and learning analytics. His current Wilderness First Responder certification and volunteer work as a trail steward for Phoenix Mountain Preserves grounds Fireline's expansion into wilderness medicine training in practitioner experience.
Sean Schaefer leads our engineering efforts, bringing more than a decade of experience building scalable learning platforms. As Lead Software Engineer at Mindspace, he architected Fathom, a learning management and gamification platform now used by Google, FedEx, and the NBA, designing microservices infrastructure supporting tens of thousands of concurrent users. His earlier work at Pearson involved full-stack development and data engineering for learning management systems serving hundreds of school districts. Sean holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Arizona State University.
We develop offline-capable educational technology using a teacher-in-the-loop architecture that amplifies educator capacity rather than replacing human expertise. Our platforms—Tuneni and Tuneni Web Services (TWS)—serve students in rural Arizona schools, correctional facilities through partnerships with the Televerde Foundation, and remote communities where reliable internet connectivity cannot be assumed. We are currently extending our technology to meet the needs of medical first responders in wilderness and austere settings.
The National Science Foundation funded our research and development based on the strength of our technical approach and experience. We have a patent pending for our offline technology based on our research and development.
Our approach is engineering-focused and mission-driven. We build foundational infrastructure, not disposable software. Our technology has demonstrated measurable impact: 400% increase in teacher feedback capacity and 50% reduction in grading time, while maintaining pedagogical quality and student privacy.
Fireline Science is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, where we continue to serve local communities while developing solutions that scale to underconnected populations nationwide.
Our mission is to build AI that amplifies human expertise, not replaces it.
We create teacher-in-the-loop learning infrastructure that works anywhere including rural schools, tribal communities, correctional facilities, and austere wilderness locations. We give educators the tools to help students realize their potential.
“Participating in this Python class has imparted one of the most valuable insights about myself: I am capable. The most important thing this class has given me is belief in myself.”
— Student, Tuneni Python Programming Class at the Arizona State Prison
