Danya (she/her) grew up outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She worked first at the International Rescue Committee, where she worked with resettling refugees, and then at The HOPE Program, working with individuals impacted by systems of criminal justice.
In 2012, she began a decade with United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL), as it transitioned to focusing solely on facilitating multi-sector, multigenerational partnerships designed to support economic mobility. She supported community schools, neighborhood roundtables, and regional partnerships and co-created data and storytelling strategies that center people’s experiences and reflect the transformations that systems must make. She left UWSL in February 2022 to join Tamarack. Tamarack supports tens of thousands of people to build the skills to change systems; catalyzes nearly 200 local place-based and deploys the wisdom of changemakers and communities to impact public policy. Tamarack’s work is to contribute to social connection and economic, climate, and education equity.
Her volunteer work is mostly in her local community, where she’s sat on the boards of Wise Owl Daycare and Renfrew County Family and Children’s Services and on the Corporate Services Committee of United Way East Ontario. She is currently the volunteer co-chair of a local school board’s parent involvement committee. She loves to read, bike, run, and watch young people discover both the beauty and the unrealized potential of the world around them.