Expertise

International education; international development; negotiations; Latin America

At the Keough School

Steve Reifenberg is teaching professor of international development in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He also is senior strategic advisor and faculty fellow of the Keough School’s Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Previously the Kellogg Institute’s executive director, he continues to direct the Kellogg-led minor in international development studies.

Courses

• International Development in Practice (undergraduate course for international development studies minor)
• LifeDesign: The Art and Science of Human Flourishing (undergraduate course)

Biography

Reifenberg’s teaching and research interests are in international education, international development, and negotiations, and built on work carried out in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, including more than a decade living overseas, primarily in Chile.

As an educational entrepreneur and builder of academic programs, Reifenberg engages in innovative pedagogies linking theory and practice to address complex global challenges. He accompanies students to develop nuanced understandings of these challenges, to work effectively on diverse, interdisciplinary teams, and to build practical skills in areas such as international development, design thinking and negotiations.

In most of his teaching, Reifenberg’s classes partner with social entrepreneurs and international organizations that present real world challenges to student teams. Together with students and partner organizations, he works to co-create spaces and opportunities where students, partners, and the communities they accompany can bring their best selves—creative, resourceful, authentic, purposeful, and impactful—to make concrete contributions to the work at hand.

Reifenberg is former co-director of the Keough School’s Integration Lab (i-Lab), part of the Master of Global Affairs program. He also has pioneered new courses such as Designing An Inspired Life, co-taught with the Notre Dame’s Inspired Leadership Initiative Director Tom Schreier, as well as LifeDesign: Mindsets, Skillsets, and Habits for a More Joyful and Purposeful Life, working closely with Joe Drey.

Before coming to Notre Dame in 2010, Reifenberg worked for two decades at Harvard University, serving as executive director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and subsequently founding and directing the DRCLAS Regional Office in Santiago, Chile. Previously, Reifenberg was the program director for Latin America at the Conflict Management Group and the director of the Edward S. Mason Program in Public Policy and Management at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The author of Santiago’s Children: What I Learned About Life Working at an Orphanage in Chile, Reifenberg continues to be actively involved in Domingo Savio in Santiago, Chile, and serves on the boards of Partners In Health and Education Bridge in South Sudan. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, an MS in print journalism from Boston University, and a BA in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

Research and Publications

Recent Work

• Where surgery is difficult: overcoming barriers to access in Chiapas, Mexico (Keough School case study)
• Improving surgical care in Zambia: building a national plan (Keough School case study)

In the Media

• Remembering Paul Farmer (Commonweal)
• Making teamwork work (Inside Higher Ed)