Biography

Danielle Wood is the associate director for research in the Center for Civic Innovation at the University of Notre Dame and the project director of the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN), a key program of the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative. ND-GAIN works to enhance the world’s understanding of adaptation through knowledge, products, and services that inform public and private actions and investments in vulnerable communities. 

She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Urban and Regional Planning with a minor in public management. She also holds her M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her B.S. from Purdue University. Her dissertation research examined how quality of life and sustainability indicator systems have been used to facilitate change in local communities, and how engagement strategies, organizational capacities, and structural design are part of building collective impact. Wood has research interests in community engagement, asset-based community development, collective impact, and resilience planning and evaluation.