Adjunct Assistant Professor
Mark Nagasawa directs the Straus Center for Young Children and Families at Bank Street College of Education, where he also teaches in the Early Childhood Leadership program. Before coming to Bank Street, Mark was an associate professor at the Erikson Institute, where he taught in the child development, social work, and early childhood education programs.
Before his academic career, he was a preschool teacher, social worker, and director for an urban school district; a special education program specialist in the Arizona Department of Education; and directed the Head Start-State Collaboration Office in the Arizona Governor’s Office for Children, Youth, and Families. All of his work is grounded in being a great-grandchild of voluntary im/migrants; social safety net beneficiary; and child of a Head Start teacher-mom whose career began by volunteering in his classroom because he was “failing.” He holds a Ph.D. in early childhood education, with a cognate in anthropology, from Arizona State University.