Samantha Illangasekare

Samantha Illangasekare is the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). In this role she serves as the Acting Director of ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) as well as ACF’s Acting Chief Evaluation Officer and Acting Scientific Integrity Officer. Prior to this role, she served as the Deputy Director of OPRE and the Deputy Division Director of OPRE’s Division of Family Strengthening. Before joining OPRE in 2014, she was on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where her research focused on family violence prevention and community-based health initiatives. Dr. Illangasekare holds a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University, a M.P.H. degree from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.