Samantha Bernstein-Sierra

Samantha Bernstein-Sierra is our Assistant Director of Research and Academic Affairs. In this role, she provides support to our faculty partners, conducts and disseminates research on service learning and community engagement, and works with our graduate research and teaching assistants to develop curricula for a wide range of undergraduate service learning classes. An attorney by trade, Sam is also a consultant and curriculum developer for JEP’s Pre-Law Project. For the last two years, she has been working to develop graduate-level community engagement programs here at USC, including the Engaged Graduate Education Learning Community which launched in January of 2018.

Sam first came to JEP during her doctoral program as a graduate research and teaching assistant. After receiving her Ph.D. in urban education policy from USC’s Rossier School of Education, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Pullias Center for Higher Education and continued to work with JEP on graduate engagement initiatives. She joined the full-time staff in the summer of 2018.