Dr. Linda Usdin graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in psychology from Duke University, has a master’s degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley and a Dr.PH. from the international health department at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The focus of her academic work was on the planning and evaluation of community development and change initiatives.

Dr. Usdin began her career as a community organizer for the North Carolina and Virginia Community Development Corporations.  While living in California, she worked for the National Economic Development and Law Center.  For two years, she was the assistant to the Director of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.  Upon returning to New Orleans, she worked for six years managing international programs for the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.  During the last fifteen years, Dr. Usdin has worked for local and national foundations as a program development and evaluation consultant. In addition, she has taught courses on building community engagement in public health efforts for the South Central Public Health Leadership Institute, the Centers for Disease Control, and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and has facilitated strategic planning processes for groups such as the City of New Orleans, National Network of Public Health Institutes, and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. She currently holds a position as Adjunct Faculty at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. 

During the spring of 2013, Dr. Usdin led a series of community conversations on community resilience in conjunction with a visit by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to New Orleans.  She was a workshop leader at the conference, “Resilience: Strength Through Compassion and Connection”, in May.

Dr Usdin is the president of swamplily llc.  In this capacity, she has helped match the strategic interests of philanthropic organizations with the needs and capacity of local non-profits and governmental agencies in diverse areas, such as homelessness, early childcare, leadership development, and transparency and accountability in governance.  In the last six years, she has worked with the Ford, the Open Society, the Conrad N. Hilton, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery, and the Greater New Orleans foundations.

Recent publications include “Building Resiliency and Supporting Distributive Leadership Post-Disaster: Lessons from New Orleans a Decade (almost) after Hurricane Katrina” in the Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Volume 10, Issue 3 (2014), “Power Amidst Renewal: Foundation Support for Sustaining Advocacy after Disasters” (2010) and “Power Amidst Chaos: Foundation Support for Advocacy Related to Disasters” (2007), (both published by the Alliance for Justice) and editing of the anniversary publication for the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, “Hurricanes Rita and Katrina – One Year Later: Remembrance, Recognition, Recovery” (2006).  Dr. Usdin was awarded a Bellagio fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation in the fall of 2012.