Senior Manager, Advocacy and Policy, Humanitarian Programs
Sesame Workshop
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

Sam Friedlander is the senior manager of advocacy and policy for humanitarian programs at Sesame Workshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her role, she translates technical research on humanitarian programs in Bangladesh and the Middle East into actionable resources for governments, the United Nations, and donors. Friedlander works to ensure that decision-makers have the research they need to improve lives.

Friedlander enjoys taking on new challenges, from writing a novel and learning to weightlift to becoming a mom. She believes in doing the best you can with whatever you’re doing and that the next step will reveal itself. She loves cooking, baking without recipes, hiking, lifting weights, reading, writing, and having philosophical debates over meals.

She says the most fulfilling part of her job is knowing that her work helps important research reach those who design humanitarian programs, write policies, and allocate funding for children in crisis situations worldwide. Her graduate degree from Emory gave her the confidence to enter her field and know that she belonged there.