Tekla Sauter

Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives

Why LEO?

"In the United States, we have the resources, innovative practices, and will to end poverty for all. By building and disseminating the evidence of what works in this fight, LEO plays a central role: rigorously researching what helps, scaling effective practice, and informing policy to improve lives and ensure dignity for all.

I come to this work through a lens of education and workforce development, but poverty’s effects reach into every part of life, and LEO works across all of them. I was drawn to LEO’s work because it is a caring community of talented academics, researchers, and policy and scaling experts answering Notre Dame’s founding charge to be a powerful force for good in the world. My own role centers on translating our impact and synthesizing our work for the people who partner with us in our work – skills that draw on the way my Notre Dame education first taught me to turn complex subjects into something that moves people."

 

Bio

Tekla leads strategic initiatives and resource development at LEO, where she helps grow the partnerships, funding, and strategy to advance the lab’s evidence-based work to fight poverty. Prior to joining LEO, she was chief of staff and senior director of development for OneGoal’s Midwest region, growing the reach of the organization’s college- and career-access work across Great Lakes states. Earlier she built an employer-funded apprenticeship program to create pathways into tech careers for career changers. Previously, she pursued doctoral studies in French literature, focusing her research on marginalized communities during a period of enormous technological change.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s degree from Harvard University.