Founder + Executive Director

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 800+ leaders has advocated for over 218 laws and policies impacting 172 million people.

Denise has served as a Fulbright scholar and a Social Entrepreneur in Residence Fellow at Stanford University, and she previously worked at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.  Her recent awards include the Gates Institute’s 120 Under Forty Global Leaders and the Powerful Women of the San Francisco Bay Area Award.

Denise has taught courses on Women’s Health & Empowerment at the University of California Berkeley and for UC San Francisco’s Masters of Global Health program. Denise has served on the boards of EngenderHealth, the Public Health Institute, and Thousand Currents (formerly IDEX).

Denise has a Ph.D. and M.A in Sociology from UC Berkeley, with a focus on gender and global development. She also holds a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University, and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Duke University. Denise is a renowned thought leader and speaker whose work has been featured by the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Ms. Magazine, 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. Currently based in San Francisco, Denise has lived in five countries, speaks four languages, and spends most of her time offline running around after her three children and two cats.