Danielle DeCosta is a Senior Manager at AcademyHealth where she is responsible for managing projects to enhance the impact and relevance of health services research, applying the tools of human-centered design to drive innovation in the research enterprise and supporting a number of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantmaking initiatives. In this role, her responsibilities include project management and strategy, qualitative research and analysis, proposal review, and impact evaluation. Her past projects have also included a workshop to explore states’ usage of disadvantage indices to advance health equity in their COVID-19 vaccination efforts, the development of rapid-cycle research priorities to inform health systems in their pandemic response, and qualitative analysis of state-based maternal health data infrastructure needs.
Prior to joining AcademyHealth, Danielle worked for the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health, providing communications, policy advocacy, and other technical assistance to the foundation's grantmaking program to improve the system of care for children with special health care needs. Danielle also previously supported a program that aims to expand contraceptive access in metropolitan hubs in Asia and Africa through the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, consulted on a USAID community-building initiative in Jamaica, and interned with the Alameda County Public Health Department. Danielle holds an M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in health systems and policy and a B.S. in biology from Stanford University.
