Dr. Samuel H. Leguizamon Grant has a 30+ year history of utilizing critical participatory action research at the intersectionality of racial, cultural, economic, gender, environmental, and geographic justice. He has worked with and through formations from the grassroots level to state government, and from community-based initiatives to those of national and international scope. Through organizing and development initiatives, he strives to improve the quality of life for people and transform structural patterns that impede mutual wellbeing.

In his very first month as only the fourth executive director in Rainbow Research’s 47-year history, Sam expanded the organization's scope by bringing in work focused on environmental and climate justice. He's coached staff on building an integral culture within the organization that is thoroughly democratic, while decolonizing and supporting the organization to develop capacities focused on intersectional research and evaluation methods.

For Sam, the point of research and evaluation is to continually enhance critical consciousness and the capacity to close gaps between the world we experience and the world we wish for, as we strive to strengthen the relationship between what we say we want to create in the world and our capacities to deliver in the context of profound socio-ecological complexity. Sam is very glad to be at Rainbow Research to contribute at this crucial time in the world — a time in which we can significantly expand democracy and mutual wellbeing through wiser collective responsibility.