Natasha Ushomirsky
Senior Program Officer, Education
Natasha Ushomirsky serves as a senior program officer for Education. In this role, she leads the Education Program’s Build Public Will strategy, which aims to engage parents, students, educators, civic leaders, and residents as informed advocates for high-quality schools.
Prior to joining the Barr Foundation, Natasha spent 14 years working at The Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy organization committed to dismantling racial and economic barriers in the American education system. At Education Trust, she led the organization’s Massachusetts team, which convenes and facilitates the work of the Massachusetts Education Equity Partnership, a collective effort of more than 40 social justice, civil rights and education advocates working to advance educational equity in the Commonwealth. Prior to spearheading Ed Trust’s work in Massachusetts, she served as the organization’s national director of P-12 policy, wherein she led the development of the organization’s policy agenda on issues critical to promoting equity and achievement in the P-12 system.
Natasha started her career at Abt Associates, a research and consulting firm, where she was involved in a variety of research and analysis projects, including economic analyses of environmental regulations and market studies. She holds a master’s degree in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a bachelor’s in economics and Spanish language and literature from Brandeis University.
As a refugee from the former Soviet Union, former English learner, and the first in her family to go to college in the U.S., Natasha knows both what it’s like to have to advocate for oneself and one’s family, and that her education journey as a white immigrant from Eastern Europe was much easier than the journeys of many students from other parts of the world, and of many students of color, both immigrant and not. She is thrilled to work with the Barr Foundation’s incredible partners to improve our education system so that all students get the learning experiences and supports that they need to soar.
