Who We Are
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115
Researchers since inception
25
Partners engaged
$13M
In research partnerships
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115
Researchers since inception
-
25
Partners engaged
-
$13M
In research partnerships
Public Exchange™ makes it easy to access highly specialized expertise or assemble a multidisciplinary team of academic researchers that can provide the insight organizations need to solve complex problems. We help our partners look deeper, ask the right questions, and anticipate what’s coming next. Partner with us.
Our Story
Public Exchange connects a wide range of academic researchers with policy, industry, and non-profit partners that need their expertise to tackle complex challenges. Our team of project managers and innovators build projects with a laser-focus on impact. By making academic expertise more easily accessible than ever before, applying rigorous research, and delivering actionable tools to address the world’s most intractable issues, our projects maximize impact.
As a first-of-its-kind program based at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, founded by former Dean Amber Miller, Public Exchange connects partners with the right team of USC researchers, defines a scope and timeline, and provides project management from start to finish. Our model provides Public Exchange partners with the data, analysis and evidence-based recommendations they need to solve big challenges.
Executive Director
Kate Weber
Kate Weber is the Executive Director of Public Exchange. She brings more than ten years of federal policy experience to USC from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she developed environmental protection, health, civil society and infrastructure development projects across five countries. She was part of a core team that launched and built the U.S. Global Development Lab – USAID’s first innovation lab – in 2014. Kate advised the Lab’s leadership on strategic outreach to 8000 staff in 60+ countries and supported public-private partnerships between USAID and Unilever, Gap, IDEO and others on water and sanitation, Ebola and other global challenges. She held previous roles at PwC and Ketchum in management and communications consulting. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the University of Texas at Austin
