Robin Clark-Bennett serves as a labor educator and Director of the University of Iowa Labor Center. She conducts research, develops curricular materials, and teaches non-credit educational programs on workers’ rights, labor-related policy issues, and leadership skills in communities across Iowa. Her current projects include research and educational support for a statewide labor-environmental alliance, community-engaged initiatives to advance gender and racial equity in skilled construction careers, and a health and safety educational program on workplace fatigue funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. She speaks Spanish and conducts many of the Labor Center’s workers’ rights programs that partner with organizations representing Iowa’s immigrant and refugee communities.

Robin grew up in a small town in Eastern Iowa and received a B.A. in History from Yale University. Her work with the labor movement began in 1992 as an intern with a garment workers’ union in New York City. She subsequently became an organizer, regional organizing director, and international staff representative with several labor organizations, supporting workers in industrial, health care, and childcare settings across the country.

Robin first joined the Labor Center from 2002-2004 as part of the Child Labor Public Education Project, a grant-funded collaboration between the Labor Center and the Center for Human Rights. She returned as a full-time labor educator in 2008 and became Director in 2021. She serves on advisory boards of the Center for Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa, the Iowa Women in Trades, the Iowa BlueGreen Alliance, and the UI Center for Human Rights, and is a member of the United Association for Labor Education.