Elizabeth Danielson has been an activist since her undergraduate days at Baylor University where she was a leader in campus anti-war and civil rights actions. She registered as a Democrat when she was old enough to vote and worked on the George McGovern presidential campaign. She is passionate about social and racial justice issues, women’s rights, and increasing the number of women in leadership positions. She has been a member of EMILY’s List for thirty years and of Arizona List since its inception.
After earning a degree in history from Baylor University, Elizabeth served as a VISTA volunteer and then as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She earned master’s and Ph.D. degrees in educational and cognitive psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was a professor at Minnesota State University, Moorhead for many years before moving into university administration. In 1997, Dr. Danielson was named Academic Vice President of Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota), the first woman to hold that position.
During her academic career, Elizabeth regularly taught a Psychology of Women course and has found many opportunities to mentor younger women. She provided counseling services to child victims of sexual abuse and served on the Board of the YWCA of Fargo-Moorhead, which ran a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Elizabeth was active in state and national professional associations, holding offices in many of them, including having been treasurer and then president of the Arizona Association of School Psychologists.
Elizabeth moved to Arizona with her husband Scott, an engineering professor at ASU, in 2001. She worked as a school psychologist and then as Coordinator of Psychological Services for the Mesa Public Schools until retiring in 2015. She is an active community volunteer, focusing her activities on services to vulnerable children, refugees, asylum seekers, and the homeless.