Barbara Chow

Barbara Chow completed an eight-year term as the director of the Education program for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a nonpartisan, private charitable foundation that advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world. Prior, Ms. Chow was the policy director of the US House of Representatives Budget Committee and the executive director of the National Geographic Education Foundation.

During the Clinton administration, she served as deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, associate director for Education, Income Maintenance, and Labor programs at the Office of Management and Budget, and special assistant to the president for White House Legislative Affairs. Previously, she also worked for the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and the Senate Budget Committee.

Earlier in her career, she worked as a member of the staff of the US Senate Budget Committee, as staff member of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee specializing in energy and natural resource issues, and as a manager of federal budget policy at Price Waterhouse. She also served on two presidential transition teams—in 1992 for President-elect Clinton and in 2008 for President-elect Obama.

Ms. Chow served as a member of the board of Grantmakers for Education from 2001 to 2006, the last two years as co-chair and then chairperson; as ex-officio board member of the National Environmental Education Foundation from 2004 to 2006; and as a member of the steering committee of the Geography Education National Implementation Plan from 2001 to 2006.

Ms. Chow is now the director of the Education program at the Heising-Simons Foundation, a family foundation based in Los Altos, California. The Foundation works with its many partners to advance sustainable solutions in climate and clean energy, enable groundbreaking research in science, enhance the education of our youngest learners, and support human rights for all people.