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Samantha serves as the Sr. Director for Early Childhood and Juvenile Justice Policy. In this role, she leads the organization’s efforts to increase investments in early childhood programs and is responsible for identifying, developing, and implementing policy solutions to cross cutting challenges in early childhood health, education, welfare, and safety. Samantha also directs First Focus’s work on juvenile justice policy with a focus on child health and safety issues.
Samantha received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology, and M.P.P. in education, family, and social policy from Georgetown University. At Georgetown, she had the opportunity to work on an ongoing evaluation of the Tulsa, Oklahoma universal pre-kindergarten program, consult with local youth and parent advocacy groups, and assess the D.C. justice system’s processing of both juvenile and adult offenders. Her independent research focused primarily on understanding the context in which youth and parents engage with the juvenile and criminal justice systems and identifying alternative strategies for promoting positive developmental outcomes in young offenders.
Prior to joining First Focus, Samantha served as an AAAS/SRCD Congressional Fellow in the Senate, working on education and child and family policy in the Office of Senator Jeff Bingaman (NM). In that capacity, she worked on a number of policy issues including education reform, national service, and child abuse prevention.
