About

This profile was current as of 2021, when she was part of the on-campus Kellogg community.

Sharon Schierling is teaching professor emeritus in the Keough School of Global Affairs. She is the former managing director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, where she was responsible for operations and management, including program planning, organizational leadership, and overseeing financial and human resources to support the mission of the Institute.  In 2020, Schierling was awarded the prestigious President’s Award for distinguished service to the University over an extended period of time. 

Schierling has more than two decades of experience administering educational and training programs in both national and international settings. She has directed projects funded by the US Department of State, the US Agency for International Development, the US Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. A Latin Americanist by training, her experience and interests now include Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Before coming to Notre Dame in 1999, Schierling spent two years in Guatemala and El Salvador as a Fulbright scholar and Boren fellow, conducting doctoral research on the reinsertion of returned refugees into civil society after the civil wars. Previously, she taught Latin American and Central American politics at Louisiana State University, where she earned an MA in political science and co-directed the Fulbright Central American Program of Undergraduate Scholarships.

Schierling has also served as president of the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, as a member of the Advisory Committee for University Relations of the International Business Council and the Board of Directors of Louisiana–El Salvador Partners of the Americas, and as a consultant to the Institute for International Research and the Consortium for Service to Latin America.