Sandy Baba provides leadership in early childhood education as a Professional Development Manager for the Center for Child & Family Studies (CCSF) E3 Institute at WestEd.

She develops high-quality early childhood education components and strategies, including system management, accreditation, assessments, performance evaluation, coaching system design, and organizational programming audits.

Baba leads the Santa Clara County (CA) Child Signature Program (CSP) initiative that serves young children who might have been exposed to high-risk factors such as prenatal drug use, poor nutrition, family poverty, and domestic violence.

Baba also manages the design and implementation of a Quality Enhancement Support Team (QuEST) to individualize professional development needs for the various CSP teaching teams.

Along with leading early childhood education initiatives in Santa Clara County, Baba provides statewide consultation and technical assistance development to enhance program quality, curriculum development, and early education coaching practices.

In addition to CSP, Baba has managed numerous other projects, including the following, which have spanned multiple geographic regions: Power of Preschool, Young Readers, Future Leaders Early Literacy Initiative; Arts and Science Enrichment Initiative; Santa Clara County Partnership for School Readiness; and California statewide environment rating training.

Baba also has developed English and Chinese language early literacy curricula for early childhood programs and language schools in the United States and overseas.

She is a certified trainer for the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) housed within CCFS. In this role, she helps educators become sensitive to young children's cues, connect with their family, language, and culture, and develop responsive, relationship-based care.

As a national Early Head Start consultant, Baba supports programs in family and community partnerships, fiscal development, universal health and safety precautions, program management, facilities development, and transportation.

Baba has served on the Board of the California Association for the Education of Young Children and is a frequent presenter on early childhood issues at conferences. In 2005, she was selected to participate in the National Association for the Education of Young Children's (NAEYC's) Supporting Teachers, Strengthening Families National Leadership Program, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, to engage early childhood professionals in preventing child abuse and neglect.

Baba also is a community liaison for the NAEYC Diversity and Equity Forum, which brings early care educators together for dialogues on related topics. In 2008, Baba led a group of early childhood experts and founded the NAEYC Asian Interest Forum to guide discussions with practitioners on early childhood issues related to children and families of Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander descent worldwide.

Prior to joining WestEd in 2003, Baba directed a homeless child development program for a nonprofit agency. There she implemented a relationship-based and modified anti-bias curriculum to counter the adverse effects of homelessness in young children. She has also taught child development classes at community college level.

Baba is literate in English, Chinese, and Japanese, conversant in Mandarin and Japanese, and a native speaker of Cantonese.

She received a BA in Asian studies from the University of California, Davis, and an MA in education (with an emphasis in early childhood education) from San Francisco State University. She is pursuing a PhD in transformative studies with a focus on global early care and education management at California Institute of Integral Studies.