Dr. Sam Bowden Akbari joined RPA as our Director of Communications in 2024. In this role, she develops and executes RPA’s vision, strategic messaging, and sets and delivers RPA’s top programmatic priorities and key research publications. Sam brings considerable experience working both in the public’s trust across the federal government, non-profits, and higher education, as well as in the private sector via management consulting.

Sam received her Ph.D. in urban geography from Rutgers University in 2023. While completing her dissertation exploring the politics of public space, she worked with Deloitte Consulting as a national consulting writer crafting RFX responses and orals pitches for high-value (>$20m) opportunities within the Pursuit Center of Excellence. As an urban and regional geographer, she has also published in prominent geography journals and most recently in the book Spatial Futures.

As a doctoral student, Sam worked both as an adjunct professor at Middlesex Community College and at Rutgers University teaching urban development and regional geography courses. She also served as a senior researcher at the Rutgers’ Voorhees Center for Civic Engagement helping MURP students develop capstone studies on housing and food insecurity.

Prior to Rutgers, Sam earned her master’s degree analyzing urban municipal accumulation strategies while serving as communications manager on Commissioner Pat Kemp’s transit-focused, winning county commission campaign. As the communications director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Florida, Sam and her team helped produce segments of The Rachel Maddow Show shedding light on civil rights infringements against the Muslim community. Sam also worked for the public affairs consulting firm Tucker/Hall, Inc. advancing the Greenlight Pinellas Transportation Referendum on behalf of the Pinellas Suncoast Transportation Authority.

You can find Sam off the 6 train in East Harlem.