Sylvia Stewart
2017 Heller MPP Segal Fellow
Sylvia Stewart is Research Communications Director for the Institute for Economic and Racial Equity (IERE) at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She graduated with a Master in Public Policy from the Heller School concentrating in Poverty Alleviation. Before starting at Heller, Sylvia served two years with the North Mississippi VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) Project. In her first year, she worked to expand United Way of Oxford & Lafayette County's outreach strategy, developing a communications plan, creating promotional materials, and training community partners how to best utilize new media to mobilize donors and volunteers. In her second year, Sylvia served as the project's VISTA Leader, focusing on building resources for the members she led and building a community of support and collaboration. Sylvia also served two terms as a VISTA Summer Associate while pursuing her bachelor's degree in International Studies with a focus in International Governance and Politics at the University of Mississippi's Croft Institute. Through her years living, serving, and studying in Mississippi, she gained a passion for rural development and poverty alleviation, especially as it relates to communities of color across the American South. She hopes to foster a better, more prosperous future for Southerners of all races, sexualities, genders, creeds and ethnicities though cross-sector collaboration, coalition building, and community empowerment. For her Segal Fellow summer internship, Sylvia joined the Farm Aid team, based out of their offices in Cambridge, Mass., on an exciting grant-making project to support black farmers across the U.S. Farm Aid hired Sylvia to stay on in a staff role on the project after her internship.