Ebony Dumas is an urban and regional planner highly skilled at building consensus among cross-sector stakeholders in order to design, implement, and manage short and long-term multi-phased projects at the intersection of arts, culture, economic development, and the built environment. She has led, managed, and supported local and national projects in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and is interested in creative and public spaces as they contribute to economic development and authentic community vitality. Guided by more than 13 years of experience leading data driven iterative design processes and forming complex analyses, Ebony excels in using a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques and methods for cohesive outcomes.
Most recently, she led the innovative initiative for the DC Office of Planning to collect oral histories as qualitative data for a land use vision study and used that content to produce a podcast miniseries, District Crossroads for the North Capitol Crossroads area. The episodes are available on your favorite platforms… and it’s really good.
Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube | project website
Ebony was a cohort member of the 2023 Urban Land Institute (ULI) Washington’s Leadership Institute for emerging built environment leaders in the DC metropolitan area. She was also a cohort member for the 2019 Association for Community Design Fellowship and has recently served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town creative placemaking grant.
Outside of planning, Ebony (aka DJ Natty Boom) spins music that ranges from Tropical Bass, International Pop, House and Hip-Hop. She has also played at diverse venues such as The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC’s 9:30 Club, The Howard Theatre, plenty of house parties, and across the Mid-Atlantic Region, New Orleans, and Lima, Peru. Natty Boom is also 1/4 of an all-women DJ Crew which creates unique and welcoming social spaces and dancefloors.
Ebony’s introduction to urban planning and her analysis of the impact that a city’s infrastructure has on creative expression began taking shape in 2007 in DC as a DJ, nightclub worker, performance festival manager, and contemporary visual art gallery manager; all at venues that were central to citywide economic development strategies.
This experience continues to inform her work today.