Ms. Ekta Shah

A Bay Area native, Ms. Shah has and is passionate about teaching in the community where she discovered her love for learning. As an Irvington High School alumna, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Riverside where she majored in English Literature and minored in Psychology. Soon after, Ms. Shah obtained her Master’s degree in English Literature from Northwestern University, where she specialized in South Asian (Dalit) literature. Throughout her Master’s program, Ms. Shah spent a great deal of time conducting research on communities that are known as the “other” an often marginalized, focusing specifically on the caste relations in Indian. She found a niche for her specialty in teaching and since has worked to teach students how to connect their cultural backgrounds to what they read, write, and learn in school.

Ms. Shah is also the winner of the University of California, Riverside, Adam Repan Petko Book Collection Competition and Northwestern’s English Department Best Research Paper in Literature.

When Ms. Shah is not teaching English at a private school in the East Bay or advising the Speech and Debate club, she can be found cooking, dancing, reading, or spending quality time with friends and family. Ms. Shah is eager to share her passion for literature with young minds at Mill Creek Academy.