Dr. Cunningham is Professor of Anthropology at Kalamazoo College (USA) and a Research Associate at ACODE. Her areas of expertise include action research methodologies, local governance, civic engagement, deliberative democracy, gender analysis and transformative learning. She has worked for over two decades with communities and institutions desiring change. With ACODE, she works especially closely with the LGCSCI and CBEG initiatives. Consistent with her action research approach, her research has led to both systems change and scholarly outputs. Her publications include two books and numerous journal articles. She has designed workshops and trainings for numerous groups and organizations in the areas of leadership development, transformative learning, and mindset change. She uses participatory research methods to bring community members ranging from farmers, to marginalized youth, to people living with chronic mental illness, to government officials, into the change process. She has worked in collaboration with a wide variety of organizations and institutions to design and implement action research projects at the international, national, regional and local levels in areas such as land use, community development, local governance, youth needs and services, transformative learning, and deliberative democracy. Consistent with her action research approach, her research has led to both systems change and academic publication. Most recently, she has published in the areas of action research, deliberative democracy, international education and higher education reform.