Meet DaVonti’

Dr. DaVonti’ DeAngelo Haynes is an educator, researcher, strategist, and community-centered leader whose work focuses on helping institutions better understand the people and communities they aim to serve.

Born in Detroit and educated in both Detroit and Cleveland public school systems, DaVonti’ brings a personal and professional commitment to questions of opportunity, connection, and institutional responsibility. He is a proud Midwestern native, a first-generation college graduate, and one of seven siblings. Those early experiences taught him that a person’s path is rarely shaped by talent or effort alone. It is also shaped by family, schools, neighborhoods, public systems, community relationships, and the opportunities people can or cannot access along the way.

That understanding has guided much of his life’s work.

Across his career, DaVonti’ has studied what happens when young people, families, and communities become disconnected from the institutions and systems that are supposed to support them — and what it takes to build stronger pathways back to education, work, community, and public life. His work is especially focused on youth disconnection, educational access and success, workforce development, community dynamics, and the role institutions play in shaping opportunity.

DaVonti’ is not only interested in identifying problems. He is interested in helping institutions, organizations, and communities move from good intentions to strategies that people can actually feel in their daily lives. His work brings together research, evaluation, teaching, program development, public scholarship, and community engagement to help leaders ask better questions, listen more carefully, and make decisions grounded in the realities of people and place.

Over the years, he has developed and implemented programs in partnership with colleges and universities, K–12 school districts, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, social service providers, foundations, and community partners. His work has included college access initiatives, youth engagement programs, workforce development initiatives, community conversations, student success efforts, qualitative research studies, evaluation projects, strategic planning, curriculum development, and public-facing reports designed to help organizations better understand impact and improve practice.

DaVonti’ earned a Bachelor of Arts in public affairs with a specialization in education policy from The Ohio State University. He later earned a Master of Social Work with a focus on children and youth services, a Master of Science in agricultural communication, education, and leadership, and a Ph.D. in agricultural communication, education, and leadership with a specialization in educational administration and an interdisciplinary minor in public policy and management, also from The Ohio State University.

His interdisciplinary training reflects the way he approaches his work. DaVonti’ does not see education, workforce development, public policy, social work, and community life as separate issues. He sees them as connected systems that shape how people move through the world and how communities experience opportunity, stability, and change.

As a scholar-practitioner, DaVonti’ has worked across higher education, social work, philanthropy, public systems, nonprofit leadership, and community-based research. He currently serves as an associate professor at Wayne State University. He has previously worked at Temple University, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and The Ohio State University, where his roles have included teaching, program leadership, student support, community engagement, and institutional strategy.

DaVonti’ is also the founder of Re/val Strategies, a research, evaluation, and strategy firm that partners with nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, public agencies, schools, and community-serving institutions. Through Re/val, he supports organizations in developing strategies, evaluating programs, listening to communities, and turning research into action. He is also the founder of Faces of Access, a 501(c)(3) organization focused on expanding educational opportunity.

His work has taken him into urban, rural, and Appalachian communities across Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Alaska, and other parts of the country. Across these communities, his works focuses on understanding how people experience systems, how communities define their own needs and strengths, and how institutions can respond with greater care, clarity, and accountability.

DaVonti’s work has earned local, regional, and national recognition, including Emmy® recognition connected to public storytelling and community-centered media work. While he is grateful for those honors, the center of his work remains the same, helping communities be heard, helping institutions learn, and helping leaders build strategies that are grounded in people’s real lives.

At the heart of DaVonti’s work is a simple belief that stronger communities are possible when people, places, and institutions are better connected. Whether he is teaching students, leading research, advising organizations, speaking publicly, or working alongside community partners, he continues to ask how institutions can better understand the people they serve and how that understanding can lead to action, opportunity, and public good.