As the Coordinator of PSU’s Student Sustainability Center, Sam Schongalla supports student engagement at the intersection of student leadership and sustainability. She is especially passionate about experiential education and creating hands-on opportunities where students can explore sustainability through practice, reflection, and community engagement. Sam will be taking on a management role in co-creating a new one-third acre garden space adjacent to the South Park Blocks, in addition to supporting a collection of campus green spaces and student-driven sustainability initiatives.
Sam brings to this role over two decades of connection to Portland’s environmental community. She has led community engagement programs with the ReBuilding Center, Columbia Land Trust, Columbia Slough Watershed Council, and the Oregon Zoo, regularly developing partnerships and hosting learning opportunities with local educational institutions. Sam also served as Sustainability Coordinator at the University of Southern California, where she opened a high-profile resource center and grew a paid internship program.
Sam has led hundreds of volunteers, students, and community members in restoring the natural areas of the Columbia River region, supporting the planting and maintenance of thousands of Pacific Northwest native trees, shrubs, and plants—many of which she has watched mature over the years. Sam is also a skilled gardener with experience growing fruits and vegetables, tending fruit trees, and building healthy soil. Since 2010, she has been an active community leader at a consensus-governed garden in Northeast Portland, stewarded by the Oregon Sustainable Agricultural Land Trust.
Sam grew up in Washington, DC, where early exposure to civic issues and public institutions shaped her awareness of power, access, and representation. Her degree in Gender & Women’s Studies from Oberlin College and her identity as a queer person inform her commitment to equity and inclusion in environmental work. She believes sustainability must be rooted in social justice and that all people should see themselves reflected in climate and sustainability leadership.
Outside of work, Sam enjoys fixing broken things, basking in silence, going to loud movies, and swimming laps slowly. She loves stews and rarely passes a bakery without stopping.