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Biography 

Jennifer Sherer (she/her) is Acting Deputy Director of EARN. Her work focuses on expanding the ability of working people to achieve racial, gender, and economic justice through organizing, collective bargaining, and state and local policy change. She leads the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN) Worker Power Project, supporting a growing cohort of state and local groups working with labor and grassroots partners to advance state and local policies that expand worker rights and build worker power. Her publications include reports and articles on labor unions, public-sector collective bargaining, “right-to-work” laws, child labor, worker misclassification, wage theft, women’s labor education, labor oral history, and working-class voters, and her work has been cited by numerous local and national media outlets including The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, and NPR.

Prior to joining EPI in 2021, Sherer served as director of the University of Iowa Labor Center, leading statewide worker outreach, education, and leadership development programming in close partnership with labor unions and community organizations. While at the Labor Center, Sherer also directed the Iowa Labor History Oral Project, helped found the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa, co-coordinated the Midwest School for Women Workers, and served on the boards of the Labor and Working Class History Association, Labor Studies Journal, and EARN affiliate Common Good Iowa (formerly the Iowa Policy Project).

Sherer first became active in the labor movement over 20 years ago as a local union officer, a project staff organizer for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE), and a leader of student anti-sweatshop campaigns while earning her PhD. She has since served as a local labor council officer, volunteered in dozens of issue campaigns, and walked many picket lines.

Education 

Ph.D., English, University of Iowa
B.A., English and Neuroscience, Oberlin College