Profile
Sandra Macaulay Leon-Barth holds a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Arts in Mass Communication, from The University of Central Florida, and a Diploma from Universidad Pontificia De Salamanca in Cursos Internacionales de Lengua y Cultura Espanolas. She joined the Experiential Learning (EL) faculty in March 2008, initially working closely with Business majors, assisting them through the process of finding rewarding and relevant internship or co-op experience and instructing business internship courses. During this time she coordinated and managed the biannual EL Internship & Co-op fair.
Within the past year and a half she has been assigned as liaison to the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) and CREOL, where she serves on the CECS EL Advisory Board, the NSF FLIT-PATH Grant program committee, and the Career Source Central Florida/UCF Grant team, which provides paid internship experience to graduating CECS students with financial need.
She serves on the committee that coordinates the annual Women in STEM event, which includes a keynote speaker and three concurrent sessions for various STEM disciplines, encompassing panels of female leaders in these careers.
Ms. Leon-Barth works closely with the IT Department in supporting IT majors through the internship preparation, search and registration process, and serves as a co-instructor on the CGS4941 internship course.
She has recently become an ASEE/CEED member and attended the January, 2020 conference in Orlando, where she served as moderator on the Industry Panel, and other presentations, as well as co-presented with Dr. Albert Manero on the internship partnership between Limbitless Solutions and Experiential Learning.
She regularly hosts companies on-campus for Internship Information Sessions, tabling and networking events. These include employer partners such as Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Orlando Health, PlayStation, Riot Games, L3Harris, and Disney, to name a few.
Through coordinating the EL intern abroad program, she has assisted students in becoming true global citizens by enriching their tertiary education with professional experience and immersion abroad.
She has instructed students in internships abroad in over 12 countries to include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Spain, and in Latin America, Chile, Brazil and Peru.
Sandra also serves as liaison to the Latin American Studies program and has supported this program’s students to gain internship opportunities at EducationUSA sites throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ms. Leon-Barth is certified as an Experiential Learning practitioner by the Experiential Education Academy (EEA), offered by the National Society for Experiential Education. Before working with EL, Sandra was the Coordinator of the Pegasus Success Program at UCF where she also served as academic advisor to this population of students, and has presented on this nationally recognized, award-winning retention program at various conferences nationwide. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, Sandra worked as an Account Executive for an Advertising agency, and as a Marketing Manager for a Caribbean company, before returning to work for her alma mater. She is a graduate of the UCF Leadership Enhancement Program, and her interests include Leadership and motivational topics, STEM experiential education and her passion lies in seeing students learn and reach their full potential through gaining relevant experience. She has been recognized for excellent service to students with an honorary induction into Alpha Kappa Psi Professional fraternity. Ms. Leon-Barth is an active member of the Cooperative Education and Internship Association (CEIA), and is faculty advisor to The Caribbean Student Association (CSA).