Joanne Nowak, MA, PhD

Senior Innovation Manager, Social Innovation Hub

As a Senior Innovation Manager for the Social Innovation Hub, Joanne leads new programming to help students, researchers, and community members scale their social innovations. She also supports the design and implementation of new evaluation methods to better define, measure, and tell the story of how social innovation happens. In addition, Joanneā€™s portfolio involves working to better understand the barriers to scaling social innovation, through stakeholder engagement and research, with the goal of contributing to thought leadership in this emerging field, and the design of programs that meet the evolving needs of social innovators. She is passionate about bringing new voices into the social innovation ecosystem and working with diverse stakeholders to make systems-level changes.

Expertise and background:

  • Ph.D., Sociology, University of Toronto
  • Master of Arts, Sociology, University of Toronto
  • Bachelor of Social Sciences, Sociology, University of Ottawa
  • Associate Director, Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy, University of California Santa Barbara
  • Lecturer, Experiential Learning, University of California Santa Barbara
  • Evaluation Officer, Global Affairs Canada
  • Policy Analyst, Global Affairs Canada