team

Pierre R. Berastaín (he/him)

Regional Director, North America

Dr. Pierre Berastaín is the Regional Director for the Centre for Public Impact in North America.

Pierre joined the CPI team in 2023. In 2024, Pierre was Interim Executive Director.

Dr. Pierre R. Berastaín holds a B.A. in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and a doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Pierre is a Co-Founder and past Chief Strategy & Operations Officer at Caminar Latino – Latinos United for Peace and Equity, a culturally specific, national organization dedicated to working with Latino families affected by domestic violence. CL-LUPE houses the National Center to Advance Peace for Children, Youth, and Families (NCAP), the federally designated resource center at the intersection of child welfare and domestic violence.

Prior to Caminar Latino, Pierre was the Chief Strategy & Operations Officer for the District Alliance for Safe Housing, the District of Columbia’s largest housing provider for survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Pierre also served as the Director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR) at Harvard University where he led and provided oversight of advocacy, education, and prevention services as well as University-wide coordination to address the needs of people who experienced interpersonal harm.

Before Harvard, Pierre served as the Assistant Director of Innovation and Engagement at the National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities (NLN), the federally funded, Latino specific resource center for gender-based violence in the United States. During his tenure, Pierre led multi-year federal grant programs under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice; partook on public policy initiatives with federal agencies; oversaw strategic communications; and conducted trainings nationally and internationally on sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking. He worked with federal agencies, college campuses and universities, domestic and sexual violence state coalitions, shelters, and community programs to infuse cultural competency on violence intervention and prevention initiatives.

In previous roles, Pierre worked for Renewal House, a domestic violence shelter in Roxbury, Mass as the Restorative Justice Advocate, and served as the Director of Media Relations for the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition. He co-founded the Massachusetts Restorative Justice Collaborative and served as the Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender (GLBT) Domestic Violence Coalition. From 2012 to 2013, Pierre was a Fellow at the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s National People of Color Media Institute.

His work has appeared in national and international publications and books, including the Huffington Post. From 2015 – 2018, he served on the board of MERGE for Equality, an organization that works to engage men around violence prevention. He is one of the founders of Latinos United for Peace and Equity; and serves on the Board of Directors for Transition House, a domestic violence shelter and social justice organization in Cambridge, MA. In 2019, Pierre was named Top 25 Most Influential LGBTQ People of Color in Boston.

Originally from Peru, Pierre immigrated to the United States with his family in 1998 and remained an undocumented immigrant for 14 years until he received DACA in 2012. He lives with his husband in Washington, DC.

Pierre is the author of 40+ articles and contributor to several books. Select works include:

  • Berastain, Pierre. “Culturally Specific Approaches to Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence Prevention & Response” in Facing Campus Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Head-On: A Guide to Prevention, Healing, and Recovery. American Psychiatric Association Publishing. Washington, DC. 2023. Print.
  • Berastain, Pierre. “Trump’s Election and Fear” in Trumpism: The Politics of Gender in a Post-Propitious America. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. London, UK. 2018. Print.
  • Berastain, Pierre. “Never Again Would I Have to Choose between Rice and Toilet Paper.” The Country I Call Home: Stories of Growing up a Citizen in Every Way but One. Reno, NV: University of Nevada, 2015. Print.
  • Berastain, Pierre. “Domestic Violence in LGBT Communities.” Safe Zones: Training Allies of LGBTQIA Young Adults. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Group, 2016. Print.
  • Berastain, Pierre. “Restorative Justice: Re-storying What Happened in Boston.” Resolution. Restorative Justice Council, London, UK. 2013. Print.