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Heather Harding, Ed.D.

Heather Harding, Ed.D., is the Executive Director of the Campaign for Our Shared Future. She is responsible for the overall health, sustainability, and success of COSF’s work. 
 
Throughout her career, Heather has focused on the intersection between access to high-quality education and racial equity. She believes that respectful collaboration between parents and teachers is an essential tool for helping our kids succeed in life. As a mother of two teenagers, she knows that parents play the role of a child’s first and primary teacher. 
 
Before earning master’s and doctoral degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Heather taught middle school and high school in underserved communities. Since then, her mission has been to improve education opportunities for all children, regardless of their class, color, or neighborhood. She had an opportunity to do this while serving as Teach for America’s Senior Vice President of Community Partnerships; as the founding Executive Director of EdCORE, a DC-focused education research consortium to improve outcomes for the students of the nation's capital; and in senior philanthropic leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and most recently the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.

 

Eliza Byard, Ph.D.

Eliza Byard, Ph.D., is co-founder and Senior Advisor to the Campaign for Our Shared Future. A leading global expert on LGBTQ+ issues in education, she is a strategist for movement building and mobilization at the local, national, and international level.

 

From 2008 to 2021, Eliza was the Executive Director of GLSEN, an organization recognized worldwide as a pioneering leader in the fight for LGBTQ+ students’ well-being and access to education. During Eliza’s tenure, GLSEN’s work spurred a significant decline in anti-LGBTQ+ harassment and violence in U.S. schools, and established a new professional norm of support for LGBTQ youth among educators, school administrators, and school staff in the United States.

 

She has served as a trusted advisor to a broad range of institutions and organizations, including the Gill Foundation, Target, Sodexo, the National Parks Service, the U.S. Department of Education, the CDC, UNESCO, and the World Bank.

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