Danielle M. Varda is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver with a secondary appointment in the Colorado School of Public Health, Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy. She also has an affiliate professor appointment in the Information Science department at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is Director of the Center on Network Science (www.center-networkscience.net), Director of the Nonprofit Concentration in the MPA program, and Advisor to the Dual MPA-MPH Degree. Dr. Varda directs the Network Leadership Training Academy (www.networkleader.org) held annually in Denver at the School of Public Affairs. She also sits on the AmeriCorps NCCC Federal Advisory Board, and is an alumn of the AmeriCorps NCCC (Class 5 and 6). Dr. Varda joins SPA from the RAND Corporation, where she worked as an Associate Policy Scientist from 2005-2008.
She specializes in collaborative governance and network leadership, focusing specifically in Public Health Systems and Services Research. Her research focus is on evaluating the network structure of interorganizational collaborations between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and the subsequent network effects of these recorded interactions. Her research portfolio includes projects in the areas of maternal/child health, public health and health networks, nonprofit community networks, economic inclusion/wealth building, and systems evaluation.