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About ICF

Shefali Pai-Samant

Vice President, Early Education
Shefali is an early childhood education expert with more than 20 years of experience in evaluating early childhood education programs and training technical assistance centers.

Shefali provides federal, state, and local clients with technical expertise in implementing and evaluating early childhood education programs. She has worked on projects for a variety of clients including Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation; Office of Head Start; Office of Child Care; Children’s Bureau, Department of Education; Texas Education Agency; and Bernard van Leer Foundation.

Shefali played a key role in various national early childhood education projects including Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey; Head Start National Training and Technical Assistance System Quality Assurance Contract; and Head Start Research to Practice: Assessing Evidence-Based Head Start Program Activities. She is highly experienced in designing research and evaluation studies, conducting literature reviews, and designing data collection tools, among oÅ·²©ÓéÀÖr skills.

Recently, Shefali served as Å·²©ÓéÀÖ principal investigator for Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Texas Education Agency’s preschool development grant statewide birth-five needs assessment and as Å·²©ÓéÀÖ senior advisor on Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Alexandria City Public Schoolsâ€� family engagement evaluation project. She currently oversees a portfolio of early childhood projects including Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation’s Head Start, Å·²©ÓéÀÖ Commander Navy Installations Command’s MilitaryChildCare.com, and Å·²©ÓéÀÖ U.S. Coast Guard’s 2020 Child Care Needs Assessment.

Education
  • Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies