Meet Shenandoah Sampson

Shenandoah Sampson (“It’s an Iroquois name that means ‘deer in the woods’”) has been a global adventurer for most of his adult life. He has crisscrossed the world as a professional snowboarder; lived in Spain (“while I found myself”); taught middle-schoolers English, mathematics, and science in South Africa, Costa Rica, and the United States; majored in international relations as an undergraduate; and served overseas through the Peace Corps. “Finally, after working for a very large, international education development organization in D.C., I took a job with the Fulbright Teacher Exchange program,” Shenandoah says. “It taught me a lot about education systems and program management, both at home and abroad. But after four years, I felt I needed a whole set of new skills to be able to apply my knowledge and experiences to make more of a difference.

“This program offered me the flexibility to explore the issues that interest me, while ensuring that I develop the hard quantitative skills required to apply to a variety of educational situations and contexts,” he explains. “But what I’ve been most surprised by is the incredible camaraderie and bonds formed among the students and faculty in this program, especially given that we’ve only been together nine months!

“The opportunities I have found here have been extraordinary. I have learned a lot about the implementation of a large-scale research project to assess the combined effectiveness of a malaria, literacy, and peer-education intervention in Kenya. I have presented research at two major HGSE conferences, and soon will travel to San Juan, Puerto Rico, as an invited speaker at one of the field’s most high-profile conferences. But what HGSE has really taught me is that good research isn’t enough — to be truly valuable, it has to translate into policy and programs that improve the education, and lives, of students.”