Colleen Dawicki is the Deputy Director of the Working Cities Challenge, coordinating the competition and supporting nine cities across Massachusetts and Connecticut while leading internal learning and communications for Working Places across New England. In addition to supporting smaller cities through the Challenge, she is developing an effort based on lessons from the WCC that will support leaders in smaller cities working to shift their civic infrastructures in ways that make their local economies more racially equitable. Before joining the Boston Fed in late 2014, Colleen worked with smaller cities to provide urban policy research and technical assistance as the director of the UMass Dartmouth Urban Initiative. Colleen is also a fellow with MassINC's Gateway Cities Innovation Institute and a member of the School Committee in her small city home of New Bedford. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from UMass Dartmouth and a B.A. in public and private sector organizations from Brown University.