Svetlana Darche, WestEd Senior Research Associate for Economic Mobility, Postsecondary, and Workforce, has extensive experience in evaluation, strategic planning, program design, and building of cross-sectoral collaborations for system change and program improvement in education and social services.
Darche’s work is focused on identifying the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for college and career readiness, civic engagement, and long-term success; developing tools to assess needed skills; and strengthening in-school and work-based strategies to facilitate skill attainment. She works with high schools and community colleges to improve student services and instruction, with a particular focus on career exploration, pathway development, and work-based learning.
Darche is also funded by NSF and NASA to implement the GLOBE program (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) with schools in California, New Mexico and Hawaii. Through GLOBE, students learn critical “21st century skills” in addition to STEM content, by doing real and motivating “work-based” citizen science that generates data useful to professional scientists and well to the development of community-based projects.