Sarah Lytle

Sarah Lytle is a nonresident fellow with the Center for Universal Education in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. She is also the executive director of the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that works with communities to implement Playful Learning Landscapes. Designed to increase educational equity and prepare children to thrive in the 21st century, Playful Learning Landscapes reimagine public spaces like corner lots, laundromats, and bus stops into playful learning installations that are based on the latest science of learning and appeal to an intergenerational audience.

Lytle has more than a decade of experience connecting science to practice, working extensively with parents, early learning providers, communities, and policymakers to promote evidence-based interactions with children. Before PLLAN, Sarah was the director of outreach and education at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. There, she developed resources and professional development materials for early childhood professionals and worked extensively with the National Center on Early Childhood Development, Teaching, and Learning with the Office of Head Start.

She has authored more than a dozen peer-reviewed publications in academic and practitioner-facing journals. Her research focused on children’s language development, the impact of screens on language development, and the role of social cues in interactive technologies like video chat. The greatest compliment she ever received was “you must have played well as a child.”

Lytle has a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Spanish from the University of Notre Dame and a doctoral degree in developmental psychology from Temple University. She was a 2014-2016 ZERO TO THREE Fellow and is currently part of Ready Nation’s Brain Science Speakers Bureau.