As Impact Director, Dr. Thompson keeps LiKEN focused on the real-world impact of our collaborative labors, oversees the annual re-design of our organizational evaluation framework, ensures the alignment of projects with overall LiKEN goals, and identifies emerging themes to inform future work, thus playing a central role in LiKEN’s strategic planning process. The Impact Director supervises Community Engagement Coordinators and provides a crucial link between all our program areas, also serving on the Communications Team. Deborah Thompson earned a Ph.D in Geography from the University of Kentucky, an M.A. in Appalachian Studies from Appalachian State University, and a B.A. in American and Appalachian Studies from Hampshire College. She has taught Appalachian Studies, geography, sociology, writing, music, and traditional dance for over 25 years, at Appalachian State University, Union College (in Barbourville, KY), University of Kentucky, and Berea College. She has directed cultural study programs and the performing folk dance team, Berea College Country Dancers, as well as organizing music and dance festivals. Thompson was a contributor to A Handbook to Appalachia and Encyclopedia of Appalachia on the topics of folklife and community, and has published articles on Appalachian music in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, Journal of Appalachian Studies, and GeoJournal. Her dissertation, Performing Community: The Place of Music, Race, and Gender in Producing Appalachian Space, explores the dialectical relationship between ideas about the Appalachian region and its people with racialized and gendered scripts, habits, and representation of old time music and musicians with a focus on jam sessions, festivals, and interviews with musicians. Thompson plays banjo, guitar, and mountain dulcimer and is immersed in the informal network of old-time music and musicians.