Christine Shen, Ed.D. Director of UCLA’s Community Schools; Professor of Education, UCLA School of Education and Information Studies

Christine Shen is a Professor of Education and the Director of the UCLA Community Schools, a campus-wide initiative managed by the School of Education and Information Studies to work within the Los Angeles Unified School District context and honoring all collective bargaining agreements for its teachers and school staff to co-create innovative sites of learning at Horace Mann UCLA Community School and the UCLA Community School. Christine Shen has 20+ years of experience leading large-scale school transformations in Los Angeles. In 2009, she part of the founding member of the first start-up public charter middle school in Los Angeles. Working as a a policy advisor for the LA City’s Human Relation Commission, Dr. Shen developed coalitions to support school safety and mobilized crisis response teams across city, county and non-profit organizations to address school violence, student incarceration and ensure safe school passages for over 100 schools in Los Angeles Unified School District. As a senior advisor for LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, she developed city policies to support high quality services to students and their families and later was a founding member of the Partnership for LA Schools, an independent nonprofit organization committed to revolutionizing school systems and transforming schools serving 12,000 students across multiple schools in Watts, Boyle Heights, and South Central Los Angeles.