Sheila Somashekhar

Sheila Somashekhar is the Director of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition, an initiative of the National Center for Smart Growth. With 15 years of experience in community and economic development, Sheila leads strategic relationship building for coalition-led activity. She most recently served as Director of Community Impact and Engagement for United Way of the National Capital Area. At United Way she oversaw multiple stakeholder collaboratives and established a new set of community-centered programs, including the launch of one-stop financial service centers across the Washington, D.C. area. Prior to that she spent six years in New York City, working on neighborhood planning and economic opportunity initiatives in nonprofit and public sector roles. She holds a Master of Urban Planning and Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from University of Maryland, College Park.