Aleesha Taylor

Aleesha Taylor is director of special projects for the Open Society Education Support Program.  Taylor manages the following program activities: strategic support to the Ministry of Education in Liberia, expansion of the Critical Thinking program, development of the Network of Education Policy Centers, and innovative finance. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Prior to joining the Open Society Foundations in July 2007 as a senior program manager, Taylor was a lecturer in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she also completed her doctoral studies.  At Teachers College, she designed and taught courses on gender and development, educational policy studies, and human rights.  Her research in the field of international educational development centered on community participation in educational governance and policy processes in East Africa.  Taylor also holds degrees in psychology from Spelman College and the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, New York.