Adrienne Gagnon

Adrienne Gagnon is a design educator and nonprofit leader. Gagnon is cofounder and executive director of DownCity Design (DCD), a nonprofit community design studio that helps people strengthen their communities using the design process as a framework for problem solving. Thousands of youth and adults have participated in DCD programs, using the design process to create small-scale civic interventions that have a big impact. The free youth programs offered by DCD build skills and empower students while creating better places for everyone to live, work and learn. In 2019, DCD was named Afterschool Program of the Year by the RI Afterschool Network. 
 
Gagnon was awarded the 2013 Rhode Island Innovation Fellowship and has previously served as a critic for RISD’s Architecture department, where she taught a course on socially engaged design. Prior to her work with DCD, she was education director for Providence CityArts for Youth and a curator for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Gagnon graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received her MA in Teaching + Learning in Art + Design (TLAD) from RISD in 2008.