United States

Sanjiv Rao

Program Officer New York

Sanjiv Rao focuses on educational equity issues in the United States, making grants to support improvements to the public education system’s school day to benefit low-income communities in particular. Sanjiv supports innovative efforts around the development, advocacy and scalability of a redesigned school day and year, from which underserved youth will more likely be able to get the education they need to succeed.

Sanjiv joined the foundation in 2012. Previously, he served as executive director of the New York State Afterschool Network, where he led policy to link quality expanded learning time opportunities—including summer learning, afterschool and extended day programs—more effectively with the public education system.

Sanjiv began his career in education as an elementary school teacher in California, Texas and Mexico. He then moved into the world of teacher professional development and school district reform as a senior associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.

Sanjiv is currently a Ph.D. candidate in public administration at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service, where his doctoral research focuses on the ways school-community partnerships enable disadvantaged families to access critical opportunities and services. During his time at Wagner, Sanjiv has also been a member of the team studying the Ford-funded Leadership for a Changing World program. He has an M.A. in education from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in History from the University of California, Los Angeles.