Dayna has over 20 years of experience working in democratic engagement and social justice as an attorney, in philanthropy and in development. Dayna worked as a voting rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, litigating cases in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere in the South.

As an Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, she funded initiatives that examined the relationship between democracy and race, changing racial dynamics and new conceptions of race in the U.S., as well as innovation in civil rights legal work. She also worked as an officer for the New York City Program at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. While associated with Public Interest Projects, a non-profit project management and philanthropic consulting firm based in New York City, she managed foundation collaboratives on social justice issues.

Most recently, Dayna directed the ELIAS Project, an MIT-based collaboration between business, NGOs and government that seeks to use processes of profound innovation to advance economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Dayna holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a juris doctor degree from New York University School of Law. She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and Radcliff Colleges.