Dr. Maggie Deichert
Vice President of Policy Development & Research
Dr. Maggie Deichert is the vice president of Policy Development & Research (PD&R) for DHA. In her position, Dr. Deichert leads DHA’s research initiatives, and the development and implementation of innovative policies to remove barriers to self-sufficiency and foster upward mobility for communities chronically under-resourced in North Texas. She is responsible for the technological design and implementation of many of PD&R’s programs and leverages a customer relations management (CRM) platform to create automation-driven programs for quick, transparent, and responsive government operations. Through her expertise in survey and research design, she leads data collection efforts that help inform internal policy recommendations and evolution.
Her past experiences researching and analyzing the attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics of different populations enables her to gather and evaluate appropriate data to help all North Texas communities, as she performs research related to patterns of segregation, poverty, access to transportation and opportunities, and operationalizes responses to address these issues.
Dr. Deichert is a Vanderbilt University doctoral graduate in political science with a focus in American politics and statistical methodology. Dr. Deichert’s dissertation explored how political identity affects the daily social interactions of U.S. communities. She has extensive experience in using research design, survey design and execution, quantitative and qualitative data collection, and advanced statistical analysis as a means of implementing change in communities.
Throughout her doctoral studies, Dr. Deichert was the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Research on Individuals, Politics, and Society Lab Grant and the Vanderbilt Department of Political Science Competitive Summer Award. Dr. Deichert’s research has been published in both political science journals and culture magazines including the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, and Flaunt Magazine.
Since joining DHA in 2019, Dr. Deichert has been involved in the development of many successful programs aimed at increasing access to housing for North Texans. In 2019, Dr. Deichert helped launch a program named Children First North Texas (CFNTX). The program is designed to combat segregation and focuses on the provision of mobility counseling and support services for voucher families with children living in racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty. The program uses technology to facilitate flexible and responsive mobility counseling for residents searching for housing as well as capture data on the housing search process to improve the program.
In 2021, the PD&R department was asked to disburse $24 million in COVID-19 rental assistance. To distribute funds quickly and equitably, DHA developed a unique automation-driven system based around an innovative equity-focused model, covered by the Wall Street Journal, to successfully provide funds to Dallas residents in less than two years.
After graduating from the Hofstra University Honors College with a degree in political science and economics, Dr. Deichert attended the Pennsylvania State University School of International Affairs and received an M.I.A. in international affairs. Dr. Deichert then attended Vanderbilt University where she obtained both an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science.
