Allison Deese

Research Scientist

Dr. Allison Deese is a Research Scientist at the Defense Industrial Base Institute (DIBI). As a disaster and organizational sociologist, Dr. Deese brings deep expertise in mixed-methods research, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand how organizations and communities build capacity and respond to disruption.

She holds a PhD and an MA in Sociology from Northeastern University and a BA with honors in Environmental Policy from Pitzer College. She also served as a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute. Her doctoral dissertation examined how recurring threats shape the capacities organizations build, draw on, or deplete to sustain operations. This research combined a national panel of 3,133 U.S. counties with interviews and surveys of leaders from 80 community-based organizations across 35 states.

Before pursuing her doctorate, Dr. Deese served as a Coastal Resources Manager with the Peace Corps in the Philippines and an AmeriCorps Regional Preparedness Coordinator with the American Red Cross in Oakland. She also responded to the 2017 Tubbs Fire and Hurricane Harvey with the Red Cross. These experiences inform her work to translate research into practical tools that help organizations and communities build lasting capacity to protect against compounding pressures.

Dr. Deese lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and enjoys sailing the Gulf of Maine with her family and sewing.