ABOUT

Shawn Clybor

I teach it. I build it. I prove it.

Short answer

Shawn Clybor, PhD, teaches organizations to use AI, builds the systems, and proves they work in daily use. He holds a PhD in history from Northwestern, was a Fulbright-Hays fellow, and taught for fifteen years before moving into AI. He founded Clybor Consulting in 2021. Current and past clients include the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Array Education, the National Academy Foundation (NAF), Cox Automotive, Openly, The Mullings Group, an established personal injury firm and a boutique law firm in Houston.

Who is Shawn Clybor?

I came to AI from the classroom. I hold a PhD in Modern European History from Northwestern University, where a Fulbright-Hays fellowship funded my dissertation research in Prague. I then taught for fifteen years: at Northwestern, as a visiting assistant professor at Utah State University and Manhattan College, and in secondary schools in New York and New Jersey. Utah State’s history department gave me its Teaching Excellence Award in 2012. Teaching is where I learned how adults take on a new skill, and it is still the center of my work.

From 2022 to 2024 I was Chief Technology Strategist and Planner at Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami. I wrote its five-year strategic plan, which the board approved in 2023, with technology and security written in as strategic goals.

I founded Clybor Consulting in 2021. For over a year I also led the technical coaching calls for Innovating with AI, a training program for independent AI consultants, and taught 26 lessons in its curriculum, from voice agents and knowledge bases to research methods and debugging.

I still write the code. For the National Academy Foundation (NAF) I built a student-facing knowledge chatbot on a platform that serves nearly 100,000 students, along with the test suite that measures its answers, and I shipped features into a live NAF platform alongside the client’s own engineering team. For Array Education I built the evaluation framework for TeachSim, its teacher-training simulation: automated tests that measure how the simulated students respond, which Array’s own engineers took over in 2026. For the International Coaching Federation (ICF), as part of an Equifinality Solutions team, I assessed how ready its data was for AI tools to answer questions in plain language, and documented the data model those tools would rely on.

Most of my work now is with organizations putting AI into everyday use. I have led the AI engagement for an established personal injury firm and coach its attorneys directly. Other current and past clients include Cox Automotive, Openly, The Mullings Group and a boutique law firm in Houston.

A prompt that works in a demo can fail on real work. So I build checks that can fail, write the rules for how people use the tools, and train the staff who touch the files every day, not only the partners.

I work from Amsterdam with clients in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands.

How do I work with clients?

I start with how the work gets done today, not with a tool. Before anything is built I sit with the people who do the work and map it: the steps, the documents, the points where someone catches an error now. Then I build, and the checks go in with the build. Every system I hand over comes with tests that can fail, written rules for how people should use it, and training for the staff who will use it every day. The goal is the one I had as a teacher: a team that moves from “I don’t know where to start” to “I can do this myself”, and can keep running the system without me.

I work with law firms, teams learning Claude and other AI consultants. The case study shows how I test what I build.

What are my credentials?

PhD, Modern European History (East-Central Europe), Northwestern University, 2010
MA, History, Northwestern University, 2005
BA, History, University of Illinois Chicago, 2003; Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellow, 2006-2007 (Prague)
Founder, Clybor Consulting, 2021 to present
IWAI Certified Consultant, Innovating with AI, since July 2025
Led Innovating with AI’s technical coaching calls for over a year; taught 26 lessons in its AI Consultancy Project curriculum, 2025-2026
Chief Technology Strategist and Planner, Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami, 2022-2024; author of the five-year strategic plan approved by the Board of Directors in August 2023
Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Utah State University (2010-2012) and Manhattan College (2012-2013)
Department Teaching Excellence Award, History Department, Utah State University, 2012
Seven peer-reviewed articles and book chapters
Translator, game developer and curriculum designer at Charles Games (Prague) on Attentat 1942 and Svoboda 1945: Liberation, award-winning educational games
Languages: Czech (fluent), Slovak (advanced), German (intermediate)