Capita Announces New Director and Senior Fellows
We’re thrilled to announce three new arrivals at Capita. Eva Fernández has joined our Board of Directors. Adrián Cerezo and Ankita Chachra are Senior Fellows.
Eva Fernández, our new Board member, is Manager of Early Childhood Development at FEMSA Foundation, where she had earlier served in various roles, beginning in 2008. Committed to the development of Latin America, she has worked in civil society and philanthropy through much of her career. Previously, she helped form Qualitas of Life Foundation to provide financial education to Hispanic immigrants in New York City and worked at the Council of the Americas organizing policy affairs programs. She also serves on the boards of Enseña por México, which is part of the Teach for All network, and the Texas chapter of The Nature Conservancy.
Eva has a degree in international relations from Tecnológico de Monterrey and an MA in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. A resident of San Antonio, Texas, since 2010, she has three young daughters.
Senior Fellow Adrián Cerezo is a Visiting Researcher and CHILD Project Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the University of Maine. His work is transdisciplinary, exploring the fundamental role of early childhood development in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by United Nations member states in 2015. He also serves as Senior Advisor on Early Childhood Development and Climate Change to the Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood, UNICEF Pacific, and the Early Childhood Development Action Network. In November 2022, he joined the delegation of the Republic of the Marshall Islands at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27).
Adrián has an MESc and a PhD from Yale University with a focus on social ecology, child development, complex systems, and global policy, as well as more than 25 years of field experience in environmental and community-based education. He is also the founder and president of the Infinite Kindness Project in Maine. His lifelong aspiration is to contribute to a kinder, more sustainable future.
Architect and urban designer Ankita Chachra is our second new Senior Fellow. Until recently, she worked at Bernard Van Leer Foundation as the Knowledge for Policy Director. She led a multifunctional team responsible for sharing tools, knowledge and resources for advancing early childhood policy that supports the healthy development of young children and the well-being of caregivers in cities.
Her previous experience includes working on residential, mixed-use, and transit-oriented urban planning projects in India, China, Malaysia, and the United States. She has over ten years of global experience working on her mission through partnerships with city agencies and the private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors.
Ankita found her passion for prioritizing the needs of children and caregivers in urban environments while leading the Streets for Kids Program at NACTO’s Global Designing Cities Initiative. She worked for the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety, primarily in Latin America and Asia. She was also part of the core team that developed the Global Street Design Guide, the first-ever worldwide guideline for designing city streets.
Ankita has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Sushant School of Art and Architecture and an MS in Urban Design from Columbia University. She is committed to creating sustainable, just, and vibrant cities for young children and families.
We’re thrilled to have such effective, creative, and passionate thinkers on our team. Their experience and expertise will strengthen Capita’s work to create a better future for children, families, and communities.