Atlantic Council

Biography

Shikha Bhatnagar

Shikha Bhatnagar is the Associate Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council.

Prior to joining the Council, Shikha lived in India, serving as an Executive Director for Teach For India, inspired by the Teach For America model of selecting outstanding young leaders, recruiting them to serve as teachers in low-resourced schools and developing a community of alumni who continue to serve as advocates of educational equity. She also previously served as Executive Director of the U.S. office of Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world’s largest non-profit run school lunch program, where she increased the organization’s presence nationally and globally through critical partnerships and grassroots mobilization.

Shikha spent time working within the U.S. Government as a Presidential Management Fellow, where she served as an International Trade Specialist at the Department of Commerce, and focused on bilateral trade agreements and other international trade policy issues, with regional emphasis on the Middle East and Asia. Shikha is actively involved in the South Asian American community. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Upakar Foundation, a non-profit organization that provided merit and need based college scholarships to Indian Americans, and has previously held leadership positions with the Network of South Asian Professionals and Indus Women Leaders, in Washington, DC.

She is also an alumnus of the Washington Leadership Program, which provides young South Asian Americans an opportunity to intern with Congressional offices in Washington, DC. Shikha holds an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and a BA in International Relations and Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.