Sister Roxanne Schares is a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and recently appointed the new Executive Secretary of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), after serving one year as Associate Executive Secretary. Before this, she was her congregation’s general superior and from 2019-2023 a member of the UISG Board of Directors. In September 2021, Pope Francis appointed her to be a member of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

From 2007 to 2015, Sister Roxanne was based in Rome, serving as her congregation’s international coordinator for justice, peace, and integrity of creation and collaborating with other congregations on issues of concern. During this time, she chaired the personnel committee of Solidarity with South Sudan and was a member of its Executive Council and Governing Board. She represented her congregation at SEDOS (Service of Documentation and Study on Global Mission) and with AEFJN (Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network) as a member of the leadership team of the Executive Committee.

She has degrees in education and theology/spirituality. After teaching high school for nine years in the USA, she lived and ministered in East Africa for 27 years. There she worked in the areas of education, diocesan leadership training, initial and ongoing formation, and with refugees in camps and urban settings in pastoral-social ministry and in education throughout Africa with the Jesuit Refugee Service.