Deanna Kolberg ‘14

This bio is current as of 2025.

Deanna Kolberg helps social impact organizations gather and interpret evidence to optimize their performance and engage communities in maximizing results.

She has a 10+ year track record of effective research, team management, and mentorship spanning numerous countries and contexts. In her role at Freedom House, she has led a team of five professionals to manage applied research and evidence-building activities across over 75 distinct program grants. She also served as the learning manager for USAID's $475 million Human Rights Support Mechanism Leader-With-Associate award, coordinating the development of 36 different knowledge products from Freedom House and partner organizations.

As a project leader, Deanna has led research teams both in person and remotely on tight budgets, while simultaneously managing multiple graduate student instructors and student learning technology for a 300-person course. For over 10 years, she has been researching and teaching about human rights, civil society, and social behavior in developing democracies and closed autocracies, with fieldwork and research experience in multiple contexts.

Kolberg has a doctorate in comparative politics from the University of Michigan (2015-2021), focusing on neighborhood politics with field work in Colombia and a BA in Political Science and Government from the University of Notre Dame(2010-14). She completed a Fulbright English Teaching fellowship in rural South Korea (2014-2015).