Sakshee Chawla joined the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) as a Senior Policy Analyst in 2023, overseeing key projects and initiatives under academic affairs and equity. She works on a breadth of projects including CUNY ASAP replication, direct admissions, student success, and student mental health and wellness. Sakshee collaborated with state higher education leaders to replicate and expand the City University of New York’s nationally acclaimed Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) model across five states, working to boost college completion rates. Through the Pursuing Alignment for Student Success Across Higher Education Institutions & State Agencies (PASS) project, she leverages her institutional expertise and state policy lens to develop a networked approach to advancing student success across the state, system, and institutions. Recognizing the inextricable link between student wellness and academic achievement, Sakshee champions comprehensive mental health policies that foster student wellness through statewide and system-wide approaches. Her research and policy interests focus on student success, educational equity, and social mobility.
Before SHEEO, Sakshee served as a Research Analyst and Project Manager for the Workforce of the Future initiative at the Brookings Institution, where she analyzed labor union demographic shifts and examined how union membership relates to worker well-being and productivity. As a graduate capstone project, she partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education to assess the impact of test-optional admissions on improving college access for underserved students. Her insights on community colleges as engines of economic growth were published in America’s Hidden Economic Engines: How Community Colleges Can Drive Shared Prosperity. Before graduate school, Sakshee worked at EAB, researching developmental education, mental health among faculty and staff, social-emotional learning, and strategies to address student learning loss.
Sakshee holds a master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in economics and psychology from Smith College.
