Ellie Adelman, The Village Institute founding director, serves as an international community development and social innovation specialist. The Village, a holistic family development center, is designed for refugee and immigrant women and youth. Adelman works with community members, partners and investors to build an innovative housing and services program for female-led refugee families. Using a human-centered design approach, Adelman collaborates with leaders in the refugee community, refugee services and affordable housing to design and launch housing, mental health and job training programs for single mother refugee families, integrating social enterprise opportunities onsite including a multicultural childcare center. Adelman has spent the past 20 years working in international community development, peacebuilding, gender equity movements and trauma therapy. Previous work has included leading reproductive health and gender equity programming with Peace Corps in The Gambia and managing an innovative multimedia campaign promoting gender equity across five different countries with Women and Girls Lead Global. She holds a bachelor’s in international conflict resolution and Spanish from Salisbury University, a master’s in international peacebuilding from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s in social work from the University of Denver.