Heather Harding
Heather is a Senior Director for Education Grantmaking at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. 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, nonprofit 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 and artful writing. She serves on several nonprofit and charter school boards including the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Freedom Community Charter School.