Dr. Denise Raquel Dunning

Biography

Dr. Denise Raquel Dunning is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Rise Up, which advances health, education, economic justice, and gender equity globally. Since its founding in 2009, Rise Up’s network of 900+ leaders has advocated for over 218 laws and policies impacting 172 million people.
Denise has served as a Fulbright scholar, a Social Entrepreneur in Residence Fellow at Stanford University, and has a Ph.D. in Sociology from UC Berkeley and a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University. Denise's work has been featured by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Christian Science Monitor, and Alliance Magazine.
Originally from Washington D.C., Denise grew up spending time eating empanadas in her mother’s native Argentina and watching the corn grow in her father’s native Nebraska. Based in San Francisco, Denise has lived in five countries, speaks four languages, and spends her free time chasing her three children and two cats.