Alumni Profile: Rebecca Silverman, MPP/MSW’23

As Senior Associate of Public Programs at The Obama Foundation, Rebecca Silverman, MPP/MSW’23, partners with neighborhoods and organizations surrounding the Obama Presidential Center (opening June 2026 in Jackson Park) to design programs and spaces they will value. 

When the Center opens, she will be front and center managing on-campus programs including forum talks, movie events, summer garden gatherings and the Futures Series, an immersive career exposure program for local high school students. Silverman is looking forward to elevating the work that local organizations are doing and providing a place where residents can gather. Central to this vision is her support of the newest branch of the Chicago Public Library that will be located on-site. 

“I’ve always loved books and reading,” said Silverman. “When I started teaching, I saw disparities not just across the country, but within my first-grade classroom.” As a teacher at an elementary school on the South Side of Chicago, she developed an interest in literacy and its disproportionate impact on students of color and low-income students. Her work to promote literacy evolved into grassroots organizing and advocacy for systemic change—a practice she maintained while pursuing a dual master’s degree at the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and the Harris School of Public Policy.  

At Crown, she earned a Master’s in Social Work (MSW) focused on educational inequities, studying systemic forces shaping policies, and joined the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program at Harris to develop concrete analytic skills to work towards creating solutions. 

Silverman’s experience at the University was shaped by her involvement in the Obama Foundation Scholars program, which empowers student leaders with a proven commitment to service. “It exposed me to professors and lecturers across the University, and it provided the opportunity to grow and learn from other scholars in my cohort.” Silverman also completed a Mayoral Fellowship with the City of Chicago, which offered valuable hands-on policy experience to complement her background in education. 

Silverman said she continues to draw upon her UChicago education in her work at The Obama Foundation. “Community is the most important stakeholder at the Obama Presidential Center, so I want to be sure the work I do is rooted in evidence as I develop measurable goals for the Center and its community engagement.”