About Me

I, Steve Reifenberg, am the co-director of the Keough School's Integration Lab, strategic advisor, and faculty fellow of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Before coming to Notre Dame in February 2010, I had worked for nearly two decades on international educational, negotiation and development issues at Harvard University. From 1996 to 2002, I served as the Executive Director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS). In 2002, the University asked me to establish Harvard’s first-ever, university-wide office overseas. In August 2002, I moved with my family to Santiago, Chile and set up the DRCLAS Regional Office which manages Harvard’s student programs in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru, as well as coordinates Harvard faculty research projects in areas ranging from architecture and archaeology to biology and public health in these countries. The Regional Office has become the model for Harvard initiatives in other parts of Latin America and in Asia.

I was the former Program Director for Latin America of the Conflict Management Group (CMG), an international non-profit organization created from the Harvard Negotiation Project at the Harvard Law School. I served as the Director of the Edward S. Mason Program in Public Policy and Management, jointly administered by the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Institute for International Development from 1990 to 1993.

In the early 1980s, I lived and worked for two years at a small orphanage, Domingo Savio, in Santiago, Chile. I have written about his experiences in Santiago’s Children: What I Learned About Life Working at an Orphanage in Chile published by the University of Texas Press. I continue to be actively involved in Domingo Savio, and also serve on numerous non-profit boards in Chile and the U.S. that deal with innovation, education, conservation, and expanding opportunities for poor children.

I am a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government where I earned a Master in Public Policy. I also hold a Master in Print Journalism from Boston University and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. I currently live in South Bend, Indiana, with my wife, Chris Cervenak, and three children, Natasha, Alexandra and Luke.

(Last updated: 9/1/2017)