Ann Hentschel

Ann Hentschel joined The Hunt Institute as Director of Early Learning in February of 2023. Her role is to lead a team to support The Institute’s policy work and programming related to early childhood.

Ann has dedicated over 35 years in promoting quality in early childhood education. The early years of Ann’s career were at Stanford University, starting as a preschool teacher at Bing Nursery School and then as executive director of two campus child care centers. During her time in California, she was a public policy board member for the California Association for the Education of Young Children and sat on the Marin County Child Care Commission. Ann relocated to Illinois and served as state anchor and director of quality assessment at The McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership from 2005 – 2016. There she worked with the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development to launch ExceleRate Illinois a quality initiative to improve programs serving the states youngest children.