Sarah Zeller-Berkman, PhD is the director of the Intergenerational Change Initiative (ICI), a PSP partner project. In this role, Sarah is working to support municipalities to promote youth participation and intergenerational policy-making. Sarah Zeller-Berkman has spent the last 15 years as a practitioner, researcher, evaluator and capacity-builder in the field of youth and community development. Trained in Social-Personality Psychology, she is a member of the steering committee for the Public Science Project. She has worked in partnership with young people on participatory action research projects about issues that impact their lives such as sexual harassment in schools, incarceration, parental incarceration, and high-stakes testing. Sarah spent the last seven years as the Director of Community-Youth Development, at The Youth Development Institute (YDI), a capacity building intermediary in NYC. Sarah has also worked as an evaluator of youth development initiatives, a researcher of adult-youth partnerships in youth activist organizations, and a professor of youth studies. Her publications include articles and chapters in the Journal of Community, Youth and Environments, The Handbook of Qualitative Research, AfterSchool Matters, New Directions for Evaluation, Globalizing Cultural Studies, and Children of Incarcerated Parents. She is committed to using youth-adult partnerships, a critical participatory action research approach and the latest technical tools to be part of a larger movement to shift the status quo with/for young people.
