Elana Duffy

After graduating from Cornell University with undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, Elana Duffy worked in civil and logic engineering briefly before deciding to enlist for active duty Army service in 2003. As both an interrogator and counterintelligence agent, she conducted multiple hostage rescue and strategic level intelligence operations, and eventually assessed into an elite clandestine unit. Unfortunately, her career was cut short when she was injured in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq. Ms. Duffy was awarded the Purple Heart medal and returned to her home in New York City upon medical retirement in December 2012.

Upon returning to New York, Ms. Duffy volunteered for local, national and international veterans’ organizations including Team Rubicon, Team Red White and Blue, Mission Continues, NYC Veterans Alliance, Sierra Club Military Outdoors and multiple others. She also assisted in the creation of a New York City-based non-profit charity to raise funds for Hurricane Sandy and other disaster relief efforts. In addition, she took on multiple organizational leadership roles (several of which she still maintains) and co-founded a successful content creation and consulting firm, www.presenttensellc.com.

Intent on solving the problems of veteran reintegration and helping those suffering with depression, suicide and homelessness, in 2015, Ms. Duffy rededicated herself to engineering, founding the electronic platform www.pathfinder.vet. This online community helps veterans and families discover and connect to the best resources in their local communities through crowd-sourced peer reviews and provides analytic tools to municipalities, organizations and donors looking to increase their impact on the veteran landscape.

Ms. Duffy is an avid mountain and rock climber, dedicated social change advocate and the (very important) food provider to two old but exceedingly friendly cats.