Sheela Das: Associate Director
Sheela Das earned her Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, Ford School of Public Policy with an emphasis in economic development, including program design and evaluation studies. She holds both a B.S. and B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Purdue University and is a professional member of the Ohio Council for the Social Studies. She studied music under two performance scholarships at Cleveland State University Department of Music. In her career including one as a professional musician and teaching artist, she has designed programs and evaluation plans for scores of programs serving inner-city, underserved communities in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland which have been successfully funded by federal, state, local, and private entities.
Since 2006, Sheela has worked for Roots of American Music and became its first Development Director in 2007. Program development strategies have helped keep ROAM operating in a difficult economy. Her programs have received top scores from the Ohio Arts Council and the completion of one such project is a film which was showcased at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2010 and will become a PBS special. Sheela designs and manages all ROAM evaluations and arts-integrated curriculums for grant funding and Cleveland Metropolitan School District approval - Sheela was instrumental in the design of the first approved art-integrated math curriculum for grades 3-6 in the Cleveland schools and ROAM’s first arts-integrated literacy program – an African folk tales and song writing program implemented in Lorain County (2010).
As a ROAM teaching artist, she creates and conducts music workshops for students in grades 1-12, and develops and delivers teacher professional development programs on how to integrate the arts into the classroom.
Sheela is a professional musician who plays flute, guitar, pennywhistle and sings as a ROAM teaching artist. Her private ensemble, "Inrish," founded in 2006, is a folk-rock group which plays for weddings and private events.
