MENLO PARK, Calif. – Chloe O’Gara, an expert in children’s education and development, will join The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as an officer in the Foundation’s Global Development Program, officials announced today.
For the past six years, O’Gara has served as the associate vice president for education and child development at the Washington, D.C.-based Save the Children Federation, where she was responsible for programs, advocacy, and investments to improve basic education and human development of marginalized children around the world.
At Hewlett, she will help direct the Foundation’s grants to improve the quality of education that children receive in the developing world. The current focus of these grants is in India and sub-Saharan Africa, where Hewlett grantees are working to increase competence in reading, math, and critical thinking among primary education students. The work also entails evaluating the teaching techniques being used to assess how effective they are.
“Chloe’s work at Save the Children and throughout her career makes her the ideal candidate to help lead our effort to improve the quality of education in the developing world,” says Smita Singh, Program Director for Global Development at the Hewlett Foundation. “She’ll bring a wealth of practical experience. I’m very happy she’s agreed to join us.”
O’Gara replaces Global Development Program Officer Ward Heneveld, who is retiring.
From 1997 to 2004, O’Gara was a vice president at the nonprofit Academy for Educational Development, in Washington, D.C., where she founded the Ready to Learn Center, which worked to strengthen the evidence for community-based early childhood and early school programs for vulnerable children. While there, she designed and launched the first large-scale, community-based program to assure the early development and learning of young children affected by AIDS in Kenya, worked on basic education in south and central Asia, evaluated and directed girls’ education projects, and contributed to designs of national early childhood programs for Kyrgyzstan and Egypt, among other projects.
Earlier in her career, she worked in a variety of capacities at the United States Agency for International Development and held several academic positions abroad and in the United States, including as a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Food Research Institute.
O’Gara has a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Swarthmore College, a master of education degree in early childhood education from the University of Rochester, and a doctorate of education in development, learning, and instruction, also from the University of Rochester.
“I’m excited to be joining Hewlett’s global development team,” O’Gara says. “For children in the developing world to realize their promise, they need more than the chance to attend school – they need an opportunity to master skills and subject matter while they are there. The Hewlett Foundation’s focus on children’s learning is a strategy for sustained, positive change in developing countries.”
About The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been making grants since 1967 to help solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. The Foundation concentrates its resources on activities in education, the environment, global development, performing arts, philanthropy, and population, and makes grants to support disadvantaged communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Contact:
Jack Fischer
Hewlett Foundation Communications Officer
(650) 234-4500 ext. 5744
jfischer@hewlett.org