Deepa Iyer, author of Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection, will provide a roadmap for how we can engage in effective and sustainable social change efforts as individuals and organizations during times of crisis and beyond.
Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Her work is rooted in Asian American, South Asian, Muslim, and Arab communities, where she spent fifteen years in policy advocacy and coalition building in the wake of the September 11th attacks and the ensuing backlash. Currently, Deepa leads projects on solidarity and social movements at the Building Movement Project, where she conducts workshops and trainings, uplifts narratives through the Solidarity Is This podcast, and facilitates solidarity strategy for cohorts and networks.
Deepa’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future (The New Press, 2015), chronicles community-based histories in the wake of 9/11 and received a 2016 American Book Award. Deepa’s most recent book (2022), a guide based on the social change ecosystem map that she created, is called Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection. Her debut children’s picture book, We Are The Builders, will be released in the fall of 2024.
Deepa serves on the advisory council of the Emergent Fund, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland in the Asian American Studies and Public Policy programs. An immigrant who moved to Kentucky from Kerala (India), Deepa graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School and Vanderbilt University.
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
1080 South University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
1080 South University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106