Dr. Vanessa Deane
Director of Urban Planning, New York University

What was the most valuable thing you learned from WeLead?
Learning how to write Op-Eds.

What was your favorite part of the program?
I loved the session with Sui Lang L. Panoke on Communications & Messaging.

What advice would you give to the current WeLead class?
Get Be bold, be audacious, and believe in your invaluable opportunity to ffer up to the world what only you can give. No one before you or after you can be you so be the best at it.

Deane is an urban planning and public policy expert with an interdisciplinary focus on local governance, service delivery and the political economy of disasters. Before joining NYU, she founded and led Pinchina when she saw the dire urban planning needs of vulnerable communities in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Deane earned a PhD in Public and Urban Policy from The New School, a Master of Arts degree in Urban Planning from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and African American Studies from Brandeis University.