Steve Reifenberg || South Bend, Indiana

Associate Professor of the Practice of International Development; Co-Director, Integration Lab

Greetings. My name is Steve Reifenberg and I am enthusiastic to help lead this course on LifeDesign.

I graduated with a philosophy degree four decades ago from Notre Dame, ready to go out and change the world. My first year out of college, I struggled teaching high school, thinking I would become a lawyer. I then worked for a couple of years at an orphanage in Chile, thinking I should be a doctor. I ended up becoming neither. Instead, I have found a home at universities (Harvard University for two decades and Notre Dame for the last decade) building bridges from the academy to the “real world.”

I currently co-direct the Keough School of Global Affairs Integration Lab (i-Lab) that connects organizations with interdisciplinary teams of masters students to address complex global challenges. I am fascinated with the connections between theory and practice, exploring questions such as: What “works” in international development? How can we manage and negotiate conflict more productively? How can we focus education in ways that are valuable in our own lives and can help improve the lives of others as well? This LifeDesign class is a result of that last question.