Vanessa L. Deane

Dr. Vanessa L. Deane is the Chief Executive Officer of Pinchina. She is also Assistant Clinical Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service, as well as the Director of Urban Planning, at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (NYU Wagner). For the Fall 2022 semester, she was a Visiting Professor of Urban Planning at Sorbonne Université in Paris, France.

Dr. Deane’s research praxis is rooted in the political economy of disasters, primarily in small island developing states. In light of a changing climate and rising instances of natural hazards, she is currently exploring the postcolonial adaptive capacity of select francophone nations facing current and imminent disaster threats.

She won the 2021-2022 Outstanding Decentralization Paper Award for Latin America and the Caribbean for her novel in-depth analysis of Haiti’s longstanding institutional challenges, accentuated by the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath. Other accolades include the 2020 “Professor of the Year,” the 2018 “Impact Award – Young Women Rising” by the American Women for International Understanding and being inducted into the Haitian Roundtable’s 1804 List as one of the “Top 5 to Watch” among Haitian-Americans in 2015. Dr. Deane was also named one of “40 Urban Leaders Under 40” by Next City in 2014.

She obtained her Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy from The New School and her Master of Urban Planning from NYU Wagner. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University with her Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies and in American Studies, along with double minors in Education Studies and in Social Justice and Social Policy.

She is also a Public Voices Fellow of The OpED Project.

Sub-specialities: Local Governance, Decentralization, Urban Planning, Institutional Development, Capacity Building, Sustainable Development