As Executive Director, Savitha leads CSCCE’s work to advance the early childhood workforce through research, policy analysis, field engagement, and movement building. She guides the Center’s strategic direction, stewards its partnerships with researchers, policymakers, advocates, and educators, and works to ensure that early educators’ voices, expertise, and dignity remain at the center of public conversations about early care and education.
Savitha brings over 20 years of experience in early care and education as a classroom teacher, researcher, nonprofit leader, and teacher educator. Throughout her career, she has worked at the intersection of research, policy, and practice—building the kind of cross-sector partnerships that translate evidence into systemic change. Her areas of expertise include policy and advocacy in early care and education, family engagement, early literacy and language development, multilingual learners, early STEM, and mixed-methods research.
Savitha started her career as a line cook before finding her way into an assistant teacher role at a preschool, where the magic of working with children changed her life. She has been a teacher, a researcher, and a nonprofit leader. She directed federally and philanthropically funded studies of early learning and STEM education at SRI International and Digital Promise and most recently served as Executive Director of Tandem, Partners in Early Learning, a Bay Area nonprofit serving 20,000 children and families annually. She is also adjunct faculty at EDvance College, teaching practicing educators pursuing their BA in Early Childhood Studies.
Savitha serves on a number of bodies shaping early childhood policy and practice, including the Community Advisory Council for Alameda County’s Measure C, the Lead Planning Team for the Oakland Starting Smart and Strong Initiative, and the Board of Directors for 4Cs of Alameda County. She previously served as co-chair of the San Francisco Universal Pre-Kindergarten Mixed Delivery Planning Grant and as a member of the San Francisco Child Care Planning and Advisory Council.
Savitha earned her doctoral degree from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University (when it was known as SUSE, the Stanford University School of Education). She also holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies from the University of Hyderabad.
In her spare time, Savitha can be found curled up with a good book, in the kitchen cooking for family and friends, or lifting weights at the gym—all while plotting the take down of the patriarchy.