Erica Dorn

Erica Dorn

PhD in Transition Design

edorn@andrew.cmu.edu

Erica's led an extensive career in local economic development, social impact investing, business and leadership education, and experience design.

She consults and facilitates organizations in relational and living systems approaches to community and economic development. She lectures and leads workshops worldwide including at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the School of Visual Arts (SVA), Colombian Chamber of Commerce, among many others. She is a leading advocate for deeper connection to place and appropriate scale in design and commerce.

In 2015, she co-founded etsy.org and served as the Managing Director of the non-profit it incubated, Good Work Institute, where she designed and led a first-of-its-kind bioregional leadership program in New York’s Hudson Valley. She serves as Board of Directors for Third Millennium Alliance, an organization that’s working with local communities to preserve the last remnants of coastal Ecuadorian rainforest. 

She is a PhD candidate in Transition Design at Carnegie Mellon University, researching and developing theory in 'designing with/of/for place'. Her work is inspired by Jane Jacobs, Judy Wicks, Rachel Carson, and Donella Meadows, and many others working towards local and networked living systems.