Contributor

Will Friedman, Ph.D

President, Public Agenda

Will Friedman, Ph.D. is the president of Public Agenda, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that partners with citizens and leaders to navigate complex and divisive issues and work together toward solutions. He joined the organization in 1994, became associate director of research in 1996 and founded its public engagement department in 1997.

Dr. Friedman has overseen Public Agenda's steady and expanding stream of work aimed at helping communities and states build capacity to tackle tough issues in more inclusive, deliberative and collaborative ways. In 2007, he established Public Agenda's Center for Advances in Public Engagement (CAPE), which conducts action research and evaluation to assess the impacts of public engagement and improve its practice.

Dr. Friedman is the author or co-author of numerous publications including "Reframing Framing," "Transforming Public Life: A Decade of Public Engagement in Bridgeport, CT," "Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Scope," "Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Power" and "From Employee Engagement to Civic Engagement: Exploring Connections between Workplace and Community Democracy." He is the co-editor, with Public Agenda chairman and co-founder Daniel Yankelovich, of the book, Toward Wiser Public Judgment, published in February 2011 by Vanderbilt University Press. Will is also a co-author of Everyone at the Table: Engaging Teachers in Evaluation Reform, forthcoming from Jossey-Bass in spring 2013.