Dr. Vanessa L. Deane is the founding principal of Pinchina and an urban policy expert whose research praxis is rooted in the political economy of disasters, primarily in small island developing states. Her scholarship is grounded in direct field experience: she spent a decade engaged in post-disaster institutional work in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, including leading a multi-year strategic planning and resource mobilization project in earthquake-affected Petit-Goâve and advising Haiti’s Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation. She went on to lead the #1 graduate urban planning program in the United States for seven years.
Amid accelerating climate change and the increasing frequency of natural hazards worldwide, she is currently exploring the postcolonial adaptive capacity of select Francophone nations facing current and imminent disaster threats. She previously pioneered a comprehensive analysis of Haiti’s ongoing institutional development challenges — leading up to and beyond the 2010 Haiti earthquake — which earned her the 2021–2022 “Outstanding Decentralization Paper Award for Latin America and the Caribbean.” In 2022, Dr. Deane was a Visiting Professor of Urban Planning at Sorbonne Université.
She obtained her Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy from The New School and her Master of Urban Planning from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University with a Bachelor of Arts in African and African American Studies and in American Studies, with double minors in Education Studies and in Social Justice and Social Policy.
Dr. Deane is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, the only independent verification of an urban planner’s qualifications in the United States — a credential that reflects the same rigor she carries into her work as Founder and Studio Director of Open String Violin Studio.