Jayanti Tambe has been named executive director, UCLA Early Care and Education, effective Feb. 1, 2015. She succeeds Gay Macdonald, who retired last summer after 23 years in that position.
An adjunct professor in child, family, and the community at Santa Monica College and, at De Anza College, an adjunct professor of music and movement Tambe, Jayanti is currently serving as a master teacher and interim executive director at Pacific Oaks Children’s School in Pasadena, California. She has over two decades of teaching experience in various capacities and programs, and is fluent in English, French, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Tamil. Her unique skill set has guided presentations she has made and teaching training she has conducted, at universities as well as the National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development (NAEYC), in support of bilingual and multilingual children.
Under her leadership, Stanford University's Rainbow School earned national recognition by NAEYC's Engaging Diverse Families Project 2010 for exemplary early childhood education programs. Tambe was also recognized for her innovative teaching practices and awarded the California Association for the Education of Young Children’s Rose C. Engel Teacher Innovation Grant.
Tambe received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in human development, specializing in early child development and leadership in education and human services, from Pacific Oaks College.
