Heather Harding
Heather is the Director, Policy and Public Understanding for Education at the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. Heather leads a portfolio of investments that build a winning narrative about educational equity and advance policies that enable an education system that delivers excellence to all.
Heather’s professional career has spanned classroom teaching, professional development, non-profit management and empirical research. She served as the founding Executive Director of a research-practice partnership at George Washington University and held several senior management roles at Teach For America. Heather was most recently a Senior Program Officer in Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Heather holds a master's and doctoral degrees in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and completed her undergraduate studies in Journalism at Northwestern. She retains her love of rigorous research & artful writing. She serves on several non-profit and charter school boards including the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Freedom Community Charter School.