Deborah led Campus Philly for 10 years, transforming it into the national model for college student engagement and retention in cities. She’s an expert in regional college and university collaboration, creating linkages between employers and higher education, and place-marketing and communications for the college student audience.

As the co-founder of Young, Smart and Local, Deborah has created a network of cities all focused on talent growth. She has led projects for Richmond, Rochester, Tulsa, Norfolk and Hartford, among others, helping those cities create programs to engage and retain their college students.

Deborah started her career as an academic, receiving her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, followed by a Mellon Post-Doctoral fellowship in the Society of Fellows at Columbia University and teaching at Bryn Mawr College (where she received her undergraduate degree.) The focus of her academic work was in political philosophy, specifically on the question of how much we need to have in common in order to tolerate our differences.