When Cranbury residents head to the polls in November they will elect the three candidates to fill the three open seats on the Cranbury Township Board of Education.
Two incumbents and one newcomer are running for the three seats. Each seat is for a full three-year term on the board.
Incumbents Pramod Chivate and Lindsay McDowell will run with Laura Hoffman and be on the ballot for the general election.
Chivate currently serves as vice president of the Cranbury Township Board of Education. He is a member of the board of education’s personnel, finance and facilities committee and policy committee. Chivate is an IT and program management executive, principal and master practitioner at North Highland, a global consulting firm.
He has a mechanical engineering degree from Southern Illinois University, a degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and a PhD in mechanical engineering from Penn State University.
Hoffman is a mathematics teacher at the Peddie School in Hightstown. She joined the school’s mathematics department in 2013. Hoffman has been a teacher in mathematics since 1999.
She has previously engaged in freelance curriculum development and design for Microsoft, Words & Numbers and the Research and Education Foundation. Hoffman has a bachelor of arts from Providence College and a masters of arts from Lesley University.
McDowell is also running for re-election. He currently is chair of the Cranbury Board of Education’s finance committee and a member of the facilities committee.
McDowell earned an engineering degree from Vanderbilt University, a masters in engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from the College of William and Mary. He is the head of IT business partnering for finance and procurement groups at Bristol-Meyers Squibb.
The general election takes place on Nov. 5.