Sarah Woodward worked on her disseratation in the Woods during a scholarly retreat in fall of 2018.

Sarah Woodward is a proud New Orleans native. Her research interests include the intersections between art, technology, and education in improving outcomes for youth and their communities. Sarah earned her B.A. in Psychology with a Minor in Art from Stanford University. She served as a Research Assistant in the Mind, Culture and Society Lab, analyzing ways that race, ethnicity, culture, gender, and social class affect perception, attitudes, motivation, and behavior.

Before joining the CCC program, Sarah worked for five years for the Mural Music & Arts Project, an innovative youth development organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. She developed health-based arts curriculum, trained instructors, established program evaluation toolkits, and led community-based mural projects. She also managed the organization’s portfolio of foundation, corporate, and government grants, securing significant new funding and establishing partnerships with tech companies including Google, Twitter, and Spotify.

Her experiences in youth development also include working with KIPP New Orleans, partnering with an art therapist to serve children with trauma post-Katrina, and advocating for novel approaches to urban education at several conferences. Finally, an accomplished visual artist, Sarah served for four years as Co-Owner and Director of a member-driven gallery and studio space in San Francisco. Sarah joined the CCC Program because she believes that addressing the complex factors that affect urban youth, particularly in a community like New Orleans, requires intellectual rigor, a breadth of skills, an interdisciplinary approach, and a commitment to cross-sector coalition building.