Vanitha Chandrasekhar

Dr. Vanitha Chandrasekhar serves as a Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine School of Education while concurrently holding the position of Educational Technology Coordinator for Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD), where she has accumulated over 29 years of experience across classroom teaching, resource specialization, and technology instruction roles.

Education:

• B.S. in Elementary Education, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• Master’s in Educational Administration, CSU Dominguez Hills
• Ed.D. in Educational Leadership (Joint Program), University of California and Cal Poly Pomona

Her research centers on leveraging digital tools to cultivate 21st-century competencies—creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and global citizenship—in K-12 learners. She champions pedagogical integration of technology to transform classroom instruction and prepare students for evolving societal demands, with particular expertise in one-to-one device implementation frameworks and digital curriculum design.

Awards & Recognition:

• Fulbright Teacher Memorial Fund Scholarship (2003) for Japanese educational systems study

Dr. Chandrasekhar teaches foundational technology courses including EDUC 131 (Educational Technology), EDUC 359 (Elementary Social Science and Information Literacy), and EDUC 364 (Instructional Design for Elementary Classrooms). She has secured over $20 million in Federal and State technology grants since 1999, authoring LBUSD’s Technology Scope and Sequence Matrix (2017 revision) and contributing to Governor Schwarzenegger’s Digital Textbook Task Force (2010) and Superintendent Torlakson’s Education Technology Blueprint (2012-2014). Professionally active in CUE (serving as Beach Cities President and Legislative Advocacy Co-Chair), LACOE Educational Technology Network, and ISTE, she advances policy through conference presentations at CUE Southern, Latino Policy Forum, and California School Library Association events.