Denali K. Dasgupta is the Director of Data Strategies at Thrive Chicago where she advances the use of data and research evidence to drive innovation that improves the success and well-being of Chicago’s youth. She and her team work closely with Thrive’s Action Teams and the Thrive Data Partnership to develop detailed, measurable, and achievable blueprints for systemic change.

Denali believes that transformational impact requires collective action, aligned efforts, and strong practice that reflects insights from data, research, and lived experience. To this end, she has built her career empowering practitioners and communities to tell their own stories and collaboratively drive towards improvement using data and research evidence. In addition to her research work, she has supported her community as a tutor, mentor, volunteer income tax preparer, and foster parent. She looks forward to the day she can put more stamps in her national parks passport and complete her graphic novel about how what we measure shapes what we know.

Prior to coming to Thrive, Denali spent eight years at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago conducting mixed-methods research and providing training and capacity building supports to practitioners in the fields of youth development, child welfare, and human services. Denali’s experience in research, policy, and advocacy includes positions with the Office of the New York City Comptroller, the Citizens’ Housing & Planning Council, and the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. She holds a B.A. in Linguistics from Yale University and a Master of Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.