Experience

Samantha currently serves as Federal Policy Director of SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, where she leads the development and execution of federal policymaker outreach, advocacy, and lobbying strategies. Samantha serves as the organizational spokesperson for federal issues, and has been featured in Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and other national publications. She has presented to high-profile audiences at national conferences—including the U.S. Conference on AIDS—on the impact of reproductive health, rights, and justice issues on young people. Samantha recently organized the inaugural Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill for the Sex Education Policy Action Council, bringing grassroots advocates from 28 states to meet with 54 members of Congress about the need for inclusive, comprehensive sex ed. Samantha’s favorite part of her work is engaging and empowering young people — but organizing sex ed karaoke nights is a close second.

Prior to joining the SIECUS team, Samantha served in a variety of roles for then-Congressman Tim Walz (MN-01). Less than a month after her internship with the Walz office began, she was promoted to an interim Staff Assistant and Scheduler role. She would later serve as Legislative Counsel, Senior Legislative Counsel, and Deputy Legislative Director. During the Congressman’s successful campaign for Governor of Minnesota, Samantha helped lead his Congressional office as Acting Legislative Director. She managed a legislative portfolio that included a wide variety of issues, but her main focuses were health care, women’s rights, and LGBTQ equality. She helped formulate the office’s messaging around issues of sexual harassment and assault as the #MeToo movement gained attention in 2017. Samantha fought for progressive policies on behalf of stakeholders across southern Minnesota, including community health centers, rural hospitals, domestic violence survivors, youth activists, LGBTQ+ servicemembers, and patient advocates. Samantha’s time on the Hill expanded her policy expertise and taught her how much mileage she could get out of a polite “you betcha!”

While earning her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law (WCL), Samantha represented clients as a student attorney at the Women and the Law Clinic and the Domestic Violence Clinic. Her cases focused on child support and asylum issues. She served as a legal intern for the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, and taught legal writing and research to first-year law students as a Dean’s Fellow in WCL’s Legal Rhetoric program. Samantha has been a member of the District of Columbia Bar since July 2014.

As a political science major at The George Washington University, Samantha served as Domestic Affairs Editor of the University’s political magazine, GW Discourse. Samantha was also Artistic Director of Forbidden Planet Productions, a student-run theater company, where she produced four full-length shows per semester and oversaw hundreds of cast and crew members. She directed the company’s fifteenth annual production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and produced a charity production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America benefiting Whitman-Walker Health.

Samantha was born and raised in central New Jersey (it does exist!) and has lived in Washington, D.C. since 2006. She resides in Navy Yard with her husband Nathan, and her interests include musical theater, tabletop games, and constantly rereading George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.