Alum Spotlight: Samantha Illangasekare
Dr. Samantha Illangasekare received her PhD from The Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Health, Behavior and Society in 2011. She also holds an MPH from Yale in Social and Behavioral Sciences and a BA from Stanford in Human Biology. After defending her dissertation, she spent some time at JHSPH as a postdoc and on faculty before transitioning to her current position in the federal government.
Tell us about your current role. What organization do you work for and what do you do?
I work at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ACF is essentially the "human services" arm of HHS - its programs aim to promote the economic and social well-being of children, families, individuals, and communities. Within ACF, OPRE’s mission is to build and disseminate knowledge about effective approaches to achieving those programs' goals.
My current role is as a Deputy Division Director for one of OPRE's four research and data divisions - the Division of Family Strengthening. In this role, I work with our Division Director to oversee a portfolio of research and evaluation on programs including teen pregnancy prevention, youth development, healthy relationships, fatherhood, family violence prevention, runaway and homeless youth, and home visiting. However, for the past 3 months, I have been temporarily filling the role as OPRE's Deputy Director. In this position, I work closely with ACF’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation to provide executive leadership and set strategic direction for OPRE’s research, evaluation, data, and other learning activities more broadly.
What is your favorite memory from your time at Johns Hopkins?
My favorite memories were spending time with the many incredibly smart and passionate people I met at Johns Hopkins, which included both the students and the faculty. The first two people I met there were Dr. Vanya Jones (when she was still a student and was finishing up her PhD!) and Dr. Andrea Gielen (when she was the Director of JHCIRP), and they were both instrumental in my decision to enroll in the doctoral program. I knew I wanted to learn from brilliant and inspiring role models like them!
Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself when you were a student?
I would have advised myself to be open to learning more about other paths outside of academia. I always thought I would end up in an academic role so I never really explored other sectors or careers while I was at Hopkins. While I loved my time there (which spanned 8 years as a doctoral student, a post doc, and a faculty assistant scientist), I am very happy with where I landed as a career civil servant in the federal government!
If you could be on any game show, which would you choose and why?
I am not a risk taker at all (perhaps influenced by all the time I spent around injury and violence prevention experts!) but I think I'd choose The Amazing Race because I would love to see all those incredible places and push myself to do some of those wild challenges. I am not sure I'd get very far in the competition, but it would be fun to try!