Samantha Bureau, PhD

Assistant Executive Director, Senior Director of International Research

Samantha is a former dual sport NCAA athlete and one of only three players to have played in every game in Franklin Pierce women’s ice hockey history at the time of her graduation. She was a two-year captain, four-year starter, and led her team to a number one nationally ranked penalty kill her senior season. She led her team in blocked shots and fewest penalty minutes. On the track, Samantha specialized in the 400m dash.

She was the first student-athlete to graduate as Valedictorian with a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Following her athletic career, Samantha transitioned to research where she has specialized in neurodegenerative diseases, notably with the Boston University CTE Center and the University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute. Throughout her career, Samantha has amassed multiple research awards, presented at conferences, authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, and contributed as a science/fact checker for the recently published book, Smarter Tomorrow.

Samantha graduated summa cum laude from Franklin Pierce University (B.S. ’16) majoring in Psychology and minoring in Forensic Psychology and Sports & Recreation Management. At the time of her graduation, Samantha was inducted into five honor societies and amassed 15 unique awards, including the prestigious New England Psychological Association (NEPA) Honorary Undergraduate Scholar Award. She was heavily involved in many aspects of campus life, both on and off the ice/track. For this she was called “the definition of success” by President Andrew Card (Chief of Staff to George Bush Jr., 2001-2006) when awarded the President’s Award, Franklin Pierce’s most distinguished recognition to a graduating student.

Samantha completed her PhD in Neuroscience from Carleton University (co-supervised at the University of Ottawa). Her focus during her doctoral training was to develop a novel mouse model for Parkinson’s Disease and investigate potential disease altering therapeutics for Parkinson’s. Samantha is also a member of the Executive MBA Class of 2022 at Cornell University’s Johnson School of Business and Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business through their joint Americas program. Samantha has excelled in her business program and won the first cross-program case competition, where Samantha and her team worked with Miele USA.