She joined the Columbia University faculty in 2014, where she is a lecturer in international and public affairs. She was the southeast regional political director for the John Edwards presidential campaign in 2004.
In 2006, she was hired as the outreach coordinator for Walmart Watch in Washington, D.C. Career Early career įollowing graduate school, Jean-Pierre worked as the director of legislative and budget affairs for New York City councilor James F. She received her MPA from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University (SIPA) in 2003, where she served in student government and decided to pursue politics. from the New York Institute of Technology in 1997. Jean-Pierre graduated from Kellenberg Memorial High School, a college-preparatory school on Long Island in 1993. In her 2019 memoir, Jean-Pierre wrote that she was sexually abused by an older male cousin when she was between the ages of seven and ten. Since both parents worked most days of the week, Jean-Pierre was often responsible for caring for her younger siblings.
Her mother worked as a home health aide and was active in her Pentecostal church, while her father was a taxi driver. She has two younger siblings, alongside whom she was raised in the Queens Village neighborhood of New York City from the age of five.
Jean-Pierre was born on August 13, 1977, in Fort-de-France, Martinique, the daughter of Haitian parents.