Desiree Barron-Callaci is a Senior Program Officer at the American Council of Learned Societies. Desiree contributes to various projects in ACLS’s evolving portfolio of fellowship and grant programs, contributing to program design, management, and evaluation, with a particular emphasis on programs that promote innovation in doctoral education and publicly engaged scholarship. For the Leading Edge Fellowship program, Desiree recruits and manages relationships with fellowship hosting organizations across the nonprofit sector, and designs career development resources and programming for fellows and program alumni. 

Desiree received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from New York University. Before joining the ACLS in 2019, Desiree worked as a birth and postpartum doula in Western Massachusetts. They continue to practice on a pro bono basis and as the aunt of a dozen preternaturally brilliant and extremely adorable nieces and nephews.

Opportunities will rarely present themselves according to neat and distinct timelines, and most professional trajectories are less linear than they may appear on a resume or on a LinkedIn profile. I am frequently surprised by the ways particular skills, interests, or projects from my PhD (but also past positions or even service, activist, community and family activities) become relevant again in unexpected moments in my work.