Director of Community-Driven Impact, Penn State Center Philadelphia
Email: carly.pourzand@psu.edu
Carly Pourzand is committed to grassroots social movements and driven by the transformative power of working collectively to address society’s most pressing social issues. Her organizing and advocacy experience spans the fields of education, immigration, and racial, economic, environmental, and worker justice. As director of community-driven impact at Penn State Center Philadelphia, Carly plays an integral role in shaping and implementing community-driven education and research initiatives that foster social change. In the past several years, she has focused on working with immigrant worker communities and building multi-racial, working-class solidarity. Her facilitation skills, honed during her six years at World in Conversation Center, are central to her participatory approach in creating spaces that reveal asymmetrical power dynamics and cultivate meaningful relationships.
Carly’s past experience also includes co-creating El Comité de Trabajadorxs de Restaurantes and The People’s Kitchen in Philadelphia and working on several impactful projects such as the Welcoming Schools Campaign, Project’s of Survival and Political Education work at 215 People’s Alliance Education Fund, Colombia se Escucha, and the Difficult Conversations Series. Carly brings a trauma-informed, healing justice approach to her daily work. Her passion for a world where everyone feels seen, heard, and valued drives her commitment to advancing the Center’s mission to strengthen the agency of local and global communities and leaders in envisioning and implementing processes for change.
Carly graduated from Penn State in 2010 and earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice in 2019. Carly loves her life in South Philly with her husband and cat.