Dr. Jacob Chacko (he/him/his) serves as the Inaugural Executive Director of the Center for Diversity & Inclusion and Director of Dialogue Across Difference at Washington University in Saint Louis. His prior student affairs experience includes serving as the Director for the Asian American Cultural Center at Rutgers University New Brunswick, inaugural Associate Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Santos Manuel Student Union at California State University, San Bernardino, interim coordinator for the Titan Dreamers Resource Center, and inaugural coordinator for the Asian Pacific American Resource Center at California State University, Fullerton.
He holds a PhD in Education Policy, Organization & Leadership with a focus on Global Studies in Education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Teaching & Learning from Illinois State University, and a B.A. in Secondary Education & Spanish from Northeastern Illinois University. After undergraduate studies, he lived in South Korea for several years teaching English and traveling South/Southeast Asia.
Jacob speaks Malayalam, English, Spanish, and a bit of Korean. Jacob was born in Kerala, India and raised in Skokie, Illinois; he is a 1.5 generation Queer Indian American. He is also a member of Alpha Psi Lambda, ΑΨΛ, a Latino interest fraternity. During his doctoral studies, he worked as the graduate assistant of the Asian American Cultural Center and was immersed into the field of student affairs.