Kate Bachtell, NORC at the University of Chicago
Kate Bachtell is a senior survey director in the Economics, Labor, and Population Studies Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. Bachtell works with the Making Connections Survey and oversees the day-to-day management of survey operations, data preparation, and data dissemination. She currently serves as the associate project director for the Making Connections Survey, a cross-sectional and longitudinal study sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Since 2005, she has participated in the planning and execution of site-based survey data collection in 10 disadvantaged communities across the United States. She also coordinates a wide range of data dissemination efforts, including preparing longitudinal data sets and technical documentation for NORC's data enclave, hosting informational data workshops and research conferences, and providing ongoing support to external data users. In 2011 Bachtell served as the project director for a qualitative study with a small subset of former Making Connections participants in San Antonio, Texas. The data are featured in her PhD dissertation on neighborhood attachment among Hispanics in low-income communities. Bachtell also served as the project director for the Housing and Neighborhood Study (HANS), a pilot study commissioned by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Timothy Bates, Wayne State University
Timothy Bates is distinguished professor of economics emeritus at Wayne State University. Prior to his Wayne State appointment, he was professor of policy analysis and chair of the graduate program of urban policy analysis at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of five books, four of which focus upon entrepreneurship. His most recent book is Race, Self-Employment, and Upward Mobility (1997). His short-term academic appointments include codirector, Minority Entrepreneurship Research Center, Kenan Institute, 2006–10; Floyd B. McKissick Visiting Scholar, Center for Urban and Regional Studies, University of North Carolina, 1999; research fellowship recipient, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1993–94; and U.S. Bureau of the Census American Statistical Association Research Fellow, 1988.
Ann Carpenter, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Ann Carpenter is a researcher in the community and economic development group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Her research focuses on resilient urban development and issues of social justice related to sustainable urban development and disaster recovery. Carpenter is currently a doctoral candidate in city and regional planning at Georgia Tech and a research associate with the Georgia Tech Research Institute Information and Communications Laboratory. She has a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in city and regional planning from Georgia Tech. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Karen Chapple, University of California–Berkeley
Karen Chappleis an associate professor of city and regional planning at the University of California–Berkeley, and serves also as associate director of the Institute for Urban & Regional Development. Chapple specializes in housing, community, and economic development. She has most recently published on regional economic resilience (in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society), innovation in the green economy (in Economic Development Quarterly), and the failure of poverty dispersal policies (in Housing Policy Debate). Her current book project is on integrating economic development and affordable housing into regional sustainability planning. Most recently, she has led a national contest sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to generate ideas for local and state job creation targeting disadvantaged communities. She is currently leading a HUD–funded research project on neighborhood investment around San Francisco's Choice Neighborhood project. Chapple has also worked on regional and local economic development research projects in Mexico, Spain, Thailand, Israel, Brazil, and Peru. She holds a BA in urban studies from Columbia University, an MSCRP from the Pratt Institute, and a PhD from the University of California–Berkeley.
Kate Davidoff, Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies
Kate Davidoff is a doctoral student at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her dissertation research explores community development systems in Baltimore, Maryland. Davidoff currently works at the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies on a project exploring innovations in community and economic development. Prior to attending Bloustein, she was a housing planner at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in Washington, D.C., working with local governments and nonprofit housing organizations to address the foreclosure crisis. Davidoff has a master's in urban and regional planning from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor of science in design and environmental analysis from Cornell University.
Lei Ding, Wayne State University
Lei Ding is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University. He conducts research in the areas of housing and mortgage markets, community and economic development, and housing policy. His recent work examines housing and mortgage market finance, foreclosure prevention and mitigation efforts, community reinvestment and fair lending, inner-city revitalization, and federal and state regulations in the mortgage market. Ding received his PhD in public policy from George Mason University and his MA and BS in engineering from Tsinghua University in China.
Steve Dubb, Democracy Collaborative
Steve Dubb is research director of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, where he has led the development of the Community-Wealth.org web-based information portal. He has authored or coauthored the books Building Wealth: The New Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Problems (2005), Linking Colleges to Communities: Engaging the University for Community Development (2007), Growing a Green Economy for All: From Green Jobs to Green Ownership (with Deborah B. Warren, 2010), and The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads (with Rita Axelroth Hodges, 2012). Dubb also conducted (with Ted Howard) the initial strategic planning that led to the development of the Evergreen Cooperative initiative in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently helps guide efforts to adopt that model to meet the needs of other cities. Previously, Dubb was executive director of the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO), a U.S. and Canadian nonprofit association that provides education and technical assistance to university and community-based housing and retail cooperatives. Dubb received his master's and PhD in political science from the University of California–San Diego and his bachelor's in economics (with honors) and Spanish from the University of California–Berkeley.
William Emmons, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
William Emmons is an assistant vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He conducts research and policy analysis and speaks frequently on the economy, housing and mortgage markets, banking, financial markets, financial regulation, and household financial conditions. Emmons has been with the St. Louis Fed since 1995. He also serves as an adjunct professor of finance at the John M. Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to those positions, he was on the faculty of the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Emmons received a PhD in finance from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dagney Faulk, Ball State University, Center for Business and Economic Research
Dagney Faulk is director of research in the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at Ball State University. Her research focuses on state and local tax policy and regional economic development issues and has been published in Public Finance Review, the National Tax Journal, the Review of Regional Studies, State and Local Government Review, and State Tax Notes. She has worked on numerous Indiana-focused policy studies on a variety of topics, including the regional distribution of state government taxes and expenditures, senior migration, and local government reform. She is coauthor (with Michael Hicks) of the book Local Government Consolidation in the United States (2011). Prior to joining the CBER, she was associate professor of economics at Indiana University Southeast. She has also worked at the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Indiana Legislative Services Agency. She received her PhD in economics from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
Elizabeth J. Fuller, Georgia Health Policy Center
Elizabeth J. Fuller is a senior research associate at the Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Much of her work is in the intersection of research and policy and the translation of scientific findings to multiple audiences and stakeholder groups. At GHPC, she provides research support for health insurance exchange planning for the Georgia Governor's Office, manages the center's Affordable Care Act's analysis team, and participates in center-directed work, which includes health impact assessments and support of health in all policies. She completed her doctorate in public health in 2007 from Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Prior to attaining her doctorate, she received a BA in political science at Emory University, worked as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, and received a master's in public health from the University of Alabama–Birmingham.
Lance George, Housing Assistance Council
Lance George is the director of research and information at the Housing Assistance Council (HAC). Prior to becoming the HAC's research director, he served as the organization's senior research associate for 10 years. Previously, George worked for Frontier Housing Inc., a nonprofit organization that builds affordable homes for low-income families in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky. His research and policy analysis at HAC encompasses a wide array of issues and topics related to rural housing, including manufactured housing, poverty and high need rural areas, rural definitions and classifications, mortgage access and finance, and general demography, mapping, and data analysis of rural people and their housing conditions.
Ira J. Goldstein, The Reinvestment Fund
Ira Goldstein is the president of policy solutions at The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a results-oriented, socially responsible community investment group. Goldstein has conducted detailed spatial and statistical analyses of housing markets in cities ranging from Philadelphia to Detroit to San Antonio. Those studies are used by local government to craft policy responses and allocate scarce resources based on local market conditions. He has also conducted studies of mortgage foreclosures and abusive lending practices. His work supported civil rights and consumer protection cases brought by federal, state, and local governments. Prior to joining TRF, Goldstein was the midatlantic director of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He is a former member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council and a current member of the Research Advisory Board of the Center for Responsible Lending, Governor of Pennsylvania's Housing Advisory Committee, and the HOPE LoanPort Board. For more than 20 years, he has been a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania's urban studies program. Goldstein received a BA, MA, and PhD from Temple University.
Nathalie Gons, Office of Financial Empowerment, New York City Department of Consumer Affairs
Nathalie Gons is director of research and evaluation at the Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) for the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. She oversees all research and evaluation of OFE's financial counseling, asset building, access to banking, integrated service delivery, and consumer protection initiatives. Prior to joining OFE, Gons led field research in the rural Philippines to test the impact of a commitment savings product on savings behavior at Innovations for Poverty Action. At the World Council of Credit Unions, she oversaw social impact and operational performance assessment in over 35 credit unions throughout Latin America. At UNICEF, she helped inform means-tested social policy and programming in Mongolia through national household survey data analysis using the Alkire-Foster method. Gons holds a BA in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MA in public affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Oscar Gonzales, CDFI Fund
Oscar Gonzales is a researcher with the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. His research focuses on income and poverty eligibility criteria for CDFI Fund grant and tax credit programs and research support for policy issues related to the Bond Guarantee Program, CDFI certification, and financial performance. Previously, he worked for four years at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in the area of federal economic and community development programs exclusively for members of Congress and congressional committees. His policy areas included the Small Business Administration, the Economic Development Administration, and Community Development Block Grants. Prior to working at CRS, he was with the Division of Insurance and Research at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, analyzing the financial performance of community banks using the CAMELS risk model. He has a BA and MA from Yale University and is ABD from the University of Maryland.
Erin M. Graves, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Erin M. Graves is a policy analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston with an interest in low-income housing and the sociological dynamics of neighborhoods. Currently, she is conducting a mixed-method longitudinal study on the impact of neighborhood stabilization efforts in high-foreclosure neighborhoods. Her prior research focused on alternatives to home ownership and the impact of home foreclosures on children's well-being. Graves has published work at the Fed on alternatives to homeownership and on the social impact of foreclosures in high-foreclosure neighborhoods. She previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on an analysis of the Chicago Housing Authority's renewal plan, which received funding from the MacArthur Foundation. She has a PhD in urban planning and sociology from MIT, a master's in planning from the University of Illinois–Chicago, and a bachelor's degree from Stanford University. Her work has been published in Journal of the American Planning Association and City & Community. She also has a forthcoming chapter on home ownership among low-income families.
Patrick Hart, New York City Center for Economic Opportunity
Patrick Hart is the Social Innovation Fund sustainability coordinator for New York City Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO). In this capacity, he works with CEO staff and program coordinators to help CEO's five Social Innovation Fund programs remain strong. He works to ensure that the Social Innovation Fund programs continue to spark program and policy change at the federal, state, and local level. Previously, he served as a policy analyst for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, where his work focused on policy issues such as foreclosure, homelessness, transit-oriented development, and other issues. Hart holds a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and a master in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Michael R. Hattery, Rockefeller Institute of Government
Mike Hattery is director of local government studies and a senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, New York. He has a range of experience as a student of state and local government in New York. He has conducted applied research and community-based technical assistance and developed educational programs for state and local officials. His work and interests are centered in the areas of public finance, organization, and service delivery. Hattery has also worked in the areas of management capacity building and the analysis of intergovernmental service delivery options, particularly among smaller governments in New York's nonmetro regions. He has served as an elected governing board member for village, town, and county government.
Megan Heckert, Swarthmore College
Megan Heckert is a visiting assistant professor in the environmental studies program of the tri-college consortium of Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford Colleges, where she introduces students to the wonders of geographic information systems (GIS). An urban geographer, she focuses on the use of GIS and spatial analysis to explore urban social issues. She is interested in urban sustainability and neighborhood revitalization, with a particular focus on how sustainability initiatives contribute to urban revitalization efforts. Her research has been published in such journals as Environment and Planning A and Transactions in GIS. In addition to her academic work, Heckert has served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, worked for a national environmental nonprofit helping K–12 teachers to facilitate community-based service learning projects, and worked as business development manager and GIS analyst for Azavea, a geospatial software development company. She holds a bachelor of science in aquatic biology from Brown University and a master of arts in geography and doctorate in urban studies from Temple University.
Maria T. Heidkamp, Heldrich Center for Workforce Development
Maria Heidkamp is a senior project manager at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Since 2007, she has been involved in research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects on issues related to the employment and training of older workers, dislocated workers, and workers with disabilities. She recently coauthored several research briefs relating to community colleges, including “How Are Community Colleges Serving the Needs of Older Students with Disabilities”; “Community College Practices that Serve Older Dislocated Workers”; and “Working for Adults: State Policies and Community College Practices to Better Serve Adult Workers at Community Colleges During the Great Recession and Beyond” (forthcoming). She is currently involved in research on community college and employer partnerships, with a focus on how workers with disabilities can be included in these efforts. Before joining the Heldrich Center, Heidkamp worked overseas for the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Agency for International Development as a technical adviser on dislocated workers and economic and workforce development in transition economies. She also previously worked as a policy analyst for the National Governors Association covering a range of workforce issues.
Jeanne M. Hogarth, Federal Reserve Board (formerly)
Jeanne Hogarth recently retired as the manager of consumer research in the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs at the Federal Reserve Board. Prior to joining the Board in 1995, she taught high school for seven years in Ohio, served a year on the extension faculty at the University of Illinois, and spent 13 years on the consumer economics extension faculty at Cornell University. She was responsible for the Board's research initiatives related to consumer financial services, including consumers' access and use of banking services, financial capability measures, and consumer financial stability and security. She is the author of both research articles as well as consumer education resources. Both her research and her consumer education programs have received awards for their excellence. Hogarth received a BS in education from Bowling Green State University and an MS and PhD in family and consumer economics from Ohio State University.
Jean Horstman, Interise
Jean Horstman is the CEO of Interise, a national organization providing established small employers in lower-income communities with the resources they need to take their businesses to the next level. Since 2004, more than 1,800 small business owners in 37 U.S. communities have used Interise's StreetWise ‘MBA'™ to grow their businesses. In 2008 and again in 2012, Interise was selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration to be the instructional provider for its Emerging Leaders (e200) Initiative. Interise has helped small employers grow their businesses by securing government contracts—a total of $883 million from 2008–11. Prior to establishing Interise, Horstman led organizations that spanned the private and public sectors. She has partnered with other social entrepreneurs, helping them scale their organizations at a national level. She is a graduate of Duke University and the City University of London.
Heather P. Imboden, University of California–Berkeley
After more than 20 years as a marketing and communications consultant to the nonprofit sector and experience as a parent organizer in Oakland's public schools, Heather P. Imboden returned to graduate school to better understand how urban environments shape access to opportunity. She is now completing her master's in city planning at the University of California–Berkeley in the College of Environmental Design. Her current research areas include public housing redevelopment and Choice Neighborhoods grants as drivers of neighborhood investment. As a PLUS Leadership Fellow with the Center for Cities and Schools, she is also investigating how school districts can better align their career academies with economic trends to increase workforce attachment for disadvantaged youth. As an undergraduate, Imboden studied architecture at Wellesley College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She currently lives in Oakland with her husband and two sons. After completing her degree, she hopes to continue her work engaging Bay Area communities in economic development and looks forward to having time to raise chickens.
Ruo Jia, Darden School of Business
Ruo Jia is a research statistician with the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. He has worked with Professor Gregory Fairchild, also of the Darden School, on research on community development financial institutions (CDFIs ) for the past three years. They have presented their work at leading CDFI industry conferences as well as to major CDFI investors, including the U.S. Treasury's CDFI Fund and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Virginia.
Pam Joshi, Brandeis University
Pamela Joshi is a senior research scientist and the associate director of the Institute on Children, Youth and Families at Brandeis University. She has 20 years of experience conducting research and evaluating public policies relating to family and children's health in diverse populations. Drawing on interdisciplinary frameworks and using qualitative and quantitative research methods, Joshi develops integrated research designs that help develop effective policy recommendations geared toward enhancing program design and providing valuable findings to practitioners and policymakers. She specializes in evidence-based reviews, policy assessment, and implementation evaluation of programs targeting diverse populations. Current evidence-based policy reviews include immigrant integration programs, disaster preparedness capacity building targeting faith-based and community organizations, and affordable housing and neighborhood mobility programs. In addition to her policy expertise, Joshi is leading or participating in research projects focused on the effects of employment and job characteristics, neighborhood conditions, and religiosity on maternal and child health outcomes in vulnerable families.
Ben Kaufman, Southern Bancorp Community Partners
Ben Kaufman is social metrics manager at Southern Bancorp Community Partners. He is responsible for the comprehensive evaluation of Southern's place-based model of community development. He has developed an evaluation model that measures program performance as well as community level improvement. He analyzes the causes of poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment in target communities and identifies measurable factors. He is responsible for evaluating programming and projects to determine alignment and efficiencies in meeting transformational goals. Prior to his work at Southern, he developed an evaluation and measurement framework for The Timberland Company to determine impact in worker programs throughout the company's international supply chain. Kaufman also worked with TOMS shoes in Ethiopia to develop the supply chain for donations; he developed a measurement and reporting framework for the local partner organizations. Kaufman has over six years of nonprofit management experience. He holds a master's in public service from the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, and a bachelor's degree in anthropology and sociology from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Atisha Kumar, World Bank
Atisha Kumar is a financial sector specialist in the finance and private sector development team of the Development Research Group at the World Bank. Her work at the World Bank focuses on measurements of financial inclusion, including the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) database, and access to finance. Her past research has focused on the political economy of trade and development.
Nika Lazaryan, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Nika Lazaryan is a research analyst at the community development group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She holds a master's in economics from Virginia Commonwealth University and a degree in English and area studies from Yerevan State University of Linguistics (Armenia). Her prior work included real estate, bankruptcy law, international development, and microfinance. Lazaryan is currently working toward a doctoral degree in applied mathematics at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Wonhyung Elsa Lee, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Wonhyung Elsa Lee is a PhD candidate in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, where she got a master's in social work. Her major research concerns organizing voluntary and collective actions for improving commercial districts and businesses, with a special focus on the process of forming business improvement districts (BIDs). Such sublocal governance and private management tools are increasingly engaged in solving various sociophysical problems in cities; thus, why and in what condition BIDs are formed, not formed, or even disestablished after formation becomes a critical question to guide future use of such tools. She studies this issue both in the contexts of “shrinking cities” such as Detroit and of “global cities” like Los Angeles.
Rob Levy, Center for Financial Services Innovation
Rob Levy is director of research at the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI). He oversees CFSI's consumer research on the financially underserved consumer and its industry research on the trends and dynamics of the underbanked marketplace. Levy has spoken to diverse industry, nonprofit, and policy audiences, including the ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum, Prepaid Expo, Microfinance USA, the Assets Learning Conference, FiSCA, the Underbanked Financial Services Forum, the FDIC Consumer Research Symposium, and the Federal Reserve Board Financial Literacy Seminar Series. His interest in the underbanked stems from his time in business school, when he served as codirector of a student consulting team for START Bank, a start-up community bank in New Haven, Connecticut, targeting the underbanked, and as a summer associate for the mortgage foreclosure task force at the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Chyi-lyi (Kathleen) Liang, University of Vermont
Born and raised in Taiwan, Kathleen Liang is a professor of entrepreneurship and applied economics at the University of Vermont, where she designed and implemented a successful entrepreneurship program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Liang received her MS and PhD from the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. Between 1996 and 1998, she worked for the Panhandle Research and Extension Center of the University of Nebraska in Scottsbluff, focusing on economic analyses of small grains, sunflower, dry edible beans, turf grass, and “prairie dogs town” management. She is well known for her innovative research topics and experiential learning oriented teaching programs, which integrate the concepts of agritourism, multifunctional agriculture, regional food network, and community entrepreneurship. Since joining the University of Vermont in 1998, Liang has obtained over $3 million from 25 research projects in funding as a principal or coprincipal investigator. She has also presented 85 papers in national and international conferences, conducted more than 40 workshops and symposiums, served as an invited speaker in over 30 meetings, authored four books, published over 20 refereed journal articles and 10 technical reports, and authored or coauthored over 50 refereed proceedings.
Susan Longworth, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Susan Longworth joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2011 as a business economist in the community development and policy studies division. Longworth has over 20 years of community development experience, with a special emphasis on CDFIs, community banks, and small business. She holds an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Michigan, a master's in public service management from DePaul University, and an international MBA from the University of Chicago.
Mary J. Lopez, Occidental College
Mary J. Lopez is an associate professor of economics at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Her primary field of interest is labor economics. Her research spans across three main areas: immigration, entrepreneurship, and poverty. Her work in these areas focuses on understanding and empirically estimating the factors that influence the migration decisions and labor market outcomes of Latinos and immigrants. In particular, she tries to understand how gender, U.S. immigration policy, and antipoverty policies shape labor market experiences. She teaches Principles of Economics, Labor Economics, Economics of Race and Gender, and the Economics of Immigration at the college.
Traci Mach, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Traci Mach is a senior economist in the financial structure section of the division of research and statistics at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She joined the Board staff in 2003 and has been conducting economic analysis of issues relating to household and small business finance, working extensively with the Survey of Small Business Finances and the Survey of Consumer Finances. Prior to joining the staff of the Federal Reserve Board, Mach served on the faculty of the economics department at the State University of New York–Albany. She received a bachelor's degree from Cornell College and a PhD in economics from Ohio State University.
Kim R. Manturuk, University of North Carolina Center for Community Capital
Kim Manturuk is the senior research associate in financial services at the Center for Community Capital at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She also leads the center's financial services research team. Her research focuses on the social and financial impacts of homeownership, new and innovative financial services and products, and behavior-based financial education with an emphasis on how to serve traditionally disadvantaged populations better. Manturuk has also conducted research on the risks and benefits of short-term credit products and has provided expert testimony to several state legislatures on this topic. She is the principal investigator on the Manejo de Efectivo (Effective Money Management) project, which brings financial coaching and access to banking services to the Latino community. Her recent work has appeared in Socio-Economics, the Journal of Urban Affairs, Social Science Research, and City & Community. She received a PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
Maria Martinez-Cosio, University of Texas–Arlington
Maria Martinez-Cosio is an associate professor at the School of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Texas–Arlington. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of California–San Diego. Her research interests include private foundations' role in community development, civic participation by immigrants in urban redevelopment, Latino parent involvement in urban education, and qualitative research methods. Cosio and her colleague from UC San Diego, Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell, coauthored Catalysts for Change: 21st Century Philanthropy and Community Development, due this May. The book analyzes the work of private and public foundations engaged in place-based community development efforts across the United States. This work presents the first comprehensive overview of foundation-led community development, and through an analysis of five case studies, it highlights innovative partnerships between public, private, and community-based organizations and residents to improve conditions in areas suffering from disinvestment.
Marcus D. Mauldin, University of Tennessee–Chattanooga
Marcus D. Mauldin is an assistant professor in political science, public administration, and nonprofit management at the University of Tennessee–Chattanooga (UTC). His research interests include state and local financial management, community economic development, and public management. Prior to joining the UTC faculty, Mauldin served as the director of the Office of Research and Evaluation within the Florida Department of Education's Division of Accountability, Research and Measurement. In this capacity, he conducted research in the areas of education accountability, including school grades and educator misconduct. Before that position, he was a senior legislative analyst with the Florida legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA). At OPPAGA, he primarily conducted evaluations of state economic development initiatives. Such initiatives included the Florida Enterprise Zone Program and the Florida Black Business Investment Board/Black Business Investment Corporations Capitalization Program. In this capacity, he had the opportunity to work closely with the Governor's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development and Enterprise Florida Inc., which is Florida's economic development public-private partnership.
Jessica Gordon Nembhard, John Jay College, City University of New York
Jessica Gordon Nembhard is associate professor of community justice and social economic development in the Africana studies department at John Jay College, City University of New York. She is also an affiliate scholar at the Center on Race and Wealth in the economics department at Howard University (which helped fund this study) and The Centre for the Study of Co-operatives at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Gordon Nembhard is a political economist specializing in community economic development, wealth inequality, and black political economy. Her research has focused on community- and asset- based economic development and democratic community economics; cooperative economics and worker ownership; racial and economic wealth inequality and wealth accumulation in communities of color; alternative urban economic and youth educational development strategies; and popular economic literacy. Her forthcoming book, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, will be published by the end of 2013.
Hoa B. Nguyen, Freddie Mac
Hoa B. Nguyen is a senior economist of housing analysis and research at Freddie Mac. She specializes in housing market analysis, housing program evaluation, and fair lending issues. Her current research focuses on loan modifications, pre-purchase homeownership counseling, and underwriting models. Previously, Nguyen worked for the World Bank as an economist in the Development Research Group. She is the coauthor of many books and publications and has been the recipient of numerous academic scholarships and awards. Nguyen received a PhD in economics from Michigan State University.
Danilo Pelletiere, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Danilo Pelletiere is an economist within the Economic Development and Public Finance Division of the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He joined HUD in September 2011, where he is currently engaged on a number of projects related to rental policy reform. He also conducts regulatory impact assessments for the department. Prior to joining HUD, Pelletiere was the research director of the National Low Income Housing Coalition for nearly nine years, where he was responsible for directing the coalition's data analysis, public opinion, and rapid response research. He has also held various positions at George Mason University, World Resources Institute, Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, and the National Association of State Development Agencies. He received his BA in regional science and history from the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD in public policy from George Mason University. He is a past Fulbright scholar in the field of economic development, based at the University of Rostock, Germany. Pelletiere is the author or coauthor of over 50 published books, chapters, articles, and professional reports on housing and economic development policy.
Rolf Pendall, Urban Institute
Rolf Pendall is director of the Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. In this role, he leads a team of over 40 experts on a broad array of housing, community development, and economic development topics, consistent with the Urban Institute's nonpartisan, evidence-based approach to economic and social policy. Pendall's research expertise includes federal, state, and local affordable housing policy and programs; land-use planning and regulation; metropolitan growth patterns; and racial residential segregation and the concentration of poverty. He currently leads the institute's evaluation of the HUD Choice Neighborhoods demonstration; a HUD-funded research study on the transportation needs of housing choice voucher users; and a project funded by Living Cities to understand the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which coordinates activities among HUD, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Between 1998 and mid-2010, Pendall was a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.
Dileep Rao, Florida International University
Dileep Rao is a clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Florida International University. He studies high-performance entrepreneurs to learn how they built big businesses and created jobs. Outside Silicon Valley, billion-dollar entrepreneurs grew with capital efficiency, not with venture capital, and they created significantly more jobs than venture capitalists. Previously, as vice president of business development at one of the country's most successful community development and finance institutions, Rao financed and developed over 450 businesses using equity, subordinated and senior debt, hybrids, and leases. He advises entrepreneurs, the U.S. government, corporations (Medtronic, General Mills), and financial institutions on high-performance strategies to build businesses and create jobs. Rao has written several books, including Business Financing: 25 Keys to Raising Money (2000), Handbook of Business Finance & Capital Sources (1982), and Finance Any Business Intelligently™ (2008). His latest book, Bootstrap to Billions (2010), shows how entrepreneurs built Fortune 500 companies without resources. Rao has been the entrepreneurial finance columnist for Forbes.com. He has a doctorate in business administration and two engineering degrees.
Amanda Ross, West Virginia University
Amanda Ross is an assistant professor of economics at West Virginia University. Her research specialties are in urban economics and public economics. More specifically, Ross's current research agenda focuses on issues regarding low-income rental housing policy. Her prior work has appeared in the Journal of Urban Economics, Real Estate Economics, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. Ross earned a PhD and MA in economics from Syracuse University, and a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Binghamton University.
Anna Maria Santiago, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University
Anna Maria Santiago is the Leona Bevis and Marguerite Haynam Professor of community development at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Santiago's research focuses on the importance of place on the economic opportunities and life chances available to low-income and minority families and on how federal, state, and local housing policies and programs serve as vehicles for community and social development. The four domains of her current work are: (1) the impacts of housing markets on low-income, minority communities and individuals; (2) human, financial, and social capital formation and asset building strategies in low-income families; (3) evaluating the multidimensional value of homeownership to low-income households; and (4) generating opportunity-rich neighborhood environments to improve the health and well-being of Latino and African-American children. Her research has been supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Ford Foundation, the Mac Arthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Social Science Research Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Her publications include numerous articles in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, and one coauthored book, Why Not in My Backyard? (2003).
Joseph Schilling, Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech
Joseph Schilling leads the Metropolitan Institute's sustainable communities and urban regeneration initiatives that explore the intersection of policy, planning, and collaboration in the development of sustainable communities. His fieldwork serves as a living laboratory for research, service learning, and policy change by extracting and disseminating model programs and practices through case studies, roundtables, and planning studios. Through the institute's Sustainability Planning Lab, students are classifying local city/county sustainability plans—over 150 to date. Based on this research, Schilling is designing a sustainability policy “index” to measure the sustainability potential of older industrial cities. With support from the Ford Foundation, the institute is home to the Vacant Properties Research Network—facilitating policy and research translation among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners on the regeneration of legacy cities. Schilling coauthored a 2012 APA report on “Cities in Transition” that provides a strategic policy planning framework for distressed communities. As part of the White House's Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative, Schilling is working with the German Marshall Fund to manage and evaluate a midcareer fellowship program for seven pilot cities. Schilling holds a master's of environmental law (LLM) from George Washington University and a JD from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
Maximilian Schmeiser, Federal Reserve Board
Maximilian Schmeiser is an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, where he conducts research on consumer financial products and household financial behavior. Before joining the Board, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Consumer Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the associate director for research and computing at the University of Wisconsin's Center for Financial Security. He received his MS and PhD in policy analysis and management from Cornell University, his MA in economics from McMaster University, and his BA in economics from the University of Regina. His research has been published in academic journals, including Applied Economics, Economics & Human Biology, Health Economics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, as well as in numerous government publications.
Jenny Schuetz, University of Southern California, Price School of Public Policy
Jenny Schuetz is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California's Price School of Public Policy. Her primary research interests are urban economics, real estate development, and housing policy. Current research projects include the changing spatial patterns of big-box stores, an evaluation of HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Program, and the effects of Manhattan art galleries on neighborhood change. Previously, Schuetz worked for the Public Housing Strategic Consulting Group of Abt Associates Inc., assessing public and subsidized housing programs for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and local public housing authorities. She also worked for the Innovations, Research and Technology Division of the Fannie Mae Foundation and, together with the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, provided consulting services to Mexico's federal housing agency. Schuetz earned a BA with highest distinction in economics and political and social thought from the University of Virginia, a master's in city planning from Massachuestts Institute of Technology, and a PhD in public policy from Harvard University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.
Peter L. Stenberg, Economic Research Service
Peter L. Stenberg is a senior economist at the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. He conducts research in the area of regional and resource economics. Prior to joining the Economic Research Service, he was an assistant professor in the economics department at Hamline University; a research associate in the Center of Urban and Regional Affairs (Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs), University of Minnesota; a research associate in the applied economics department, University of Minnesota; and a private consultant who had research contracts with various state and federal agencies, universities, and corporations across the United States. Stenberg is also an ex officio board member of the Western Rural Development Center, program chair for the North American Regional Science Council, member and former chair, NE-1029 rural research committee, and chair, AAEA case study committee. He has written more than 150 professional articles on economic development and policy and been an invited speaker for numerous venues. Topics have included telecommunications, science and technology policy, higher education, defense restructuring, high-technology industry, regional economies, rural economies, and other economic development topics. Stenberg earned a PhD and an MS in applied economics and a BS in engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Nichole M. Stewart, University of Maryland–Baltimore County (UMBC)
Nichole Stewart is a researcher, analyst, and evaluator experienced in data management, analysis, and visualization. She earned her master's in community planning at University of Maryland–College Park in 2009. She is currently a fourth-year doctoral student in UMBC's public policy program with a focus on evaluation and analytical methods. Her current research interests involve studying the causal impact of mixed-income development, housing relocation, subsidized economic development, and developer locational incentives on employment outcomes.
Brett Theodos, Urban Institute
Brett Theodos is a senior research associate in the Urban Institute's Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. His expertise is in affordable housing, neighborhood change, economic and community development, and financial services. He currently leads an impact evaluation of 10 shared equity homeownership programs with funding from the Social Innovation Fund, and conducted an earlier study of outcomes for homebuyers in seven shared equity programs for NCB Capital Impact. For the Annie E. Casey Foundation, he has conducted several research studies of household mobility, including examining the relationship between mobility and neighborhood change. Theodos is also engaged through the MacArthur Foundation's Building Resilient Regions network to complete a series of research studies on the links between housing and neighborhoods. He has evaluated several federal economic development programs, including the New Markets Tax Credit program, four Small Business Administration loan or investment programs, and HUD's Section 108 program. He has conducted research on financial capability, financial education and coaching, and small dollar credit products in work sponsored by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Marisabel Torres, National Council of La Raza
Marisabel Torres joined the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) in 2008 to work in its Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation (ORAL). In her current capacity as policy analyst in the Wealth-Building Policy Project, Torres's portfolio includes banking and homeownership policies affecting Latino families. She produces policy documents that demonstrate the effects of social programs on the Latino community and communicates NCLR's position and recommended policy changes to Congress and NCLR's affiliate organizations, as well as to other interested stakeholders. Previously, Torres worked in ORAL as a policy analyst in the Policy Analysis Center and as part of the Economic and Employment Policy Project. Her work included analyses of federal investments in Latino-serving programs, the Latino electorate, and barriers to federal retirement programs for low-income Latino workers. Before working at NCLR, she worked as a government affairs associate for the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association, an international trade association representing the screen and digital printing industries. She holds a BA in international affairs from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Maude Toussaint-Comeau, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Maude Toussaint-Comeau is a senior business economist at the community development and policy studies division of the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She is also an adjunct faculty teaching economics at DePaul University. She has conducted extensive research in applied microeconomics, on consumer finance and access to credit by vulnerable populations, and has been published in academic journals, including the Review of Economics and Statistics, International Migration Review, Contemporary Economic Policy, and Eastern Economic Journal. She is the coeditor of a volume, Strategies for Improving Economic Mobility of Workers-Bridging Research and Practice (2009). She serves as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers to the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Illinois Economic Association, and a member of the American Economic Association and the Western Economic Association International. She holds a BA in economics from the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign, a MS in economics from Temple University, and a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois–Chicago.
Shannon Van Zandt, Texas A&M University
Shannon Van Zandt is an associate professor of landscape architecture and urban planning, coordinator of the Master of Urban Planning Program, and interim director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M University. She holds the Roy L. Dockery Professorship in Housing and Homelessness. Van Zandt's research, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, centers on the spatial distribution of housing and the consequences for vulnerable populations. Her work argues that housing (availability, affordability) is one of the primary mechanisms by which households are distributed throughout the community, affecting social and economic outcomes for them. Her research helps planners and policymakers understand how institutional, market, and regulatory forces can influence the equitable distribution of housing within their communities. Her current research—funded with two consecutive grants from the NSF—focuses on social vulnerability to and recovery from Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas. Van Zandt has a doctorate in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.
Elizabeth Weigensberg, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Elizabeth Weigensberg is a senior researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Her research interests include workforce development and child welfare, with expertise in performance measurement, program evaluation, and the use of administrative data to improve policy and practice. She currently serves as the principal investigator of Chapin Hall's CWICstats (Chicagoland Workforce Information Collaborative). She also leads the development of system requirements for the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership's new integrated data system. She is the principal investigator for the implementation study of Career and Technical Education in the Chicago Public Schools and is engaged in the U.S. Department of Labor Opportunities for Youth project. She also conducts child welfare research, including assessing performance contracting measures for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Weigensberg has a PhD from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill School of Social Work.
Beadsie Woo, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Beadsie Woo is a senior associate in the Center for Community and Economic Opportunity at The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Her work to increase financial stability for families and children focuses on strategies that facilitate asset development and protect asset holding, including those related to foreclosure. She is a coauthor of Weathering the Recession: The Financial Crisis and Family Wealth Changes in Low-Income Neighborhoods (2012), which examines what happened to assets, debts, and home equity for families living in low-income neighborhoods during the Great Recession, using data from the longitudinal Making Connections Survey. Woo holds an AB in economics from Davidson College, a MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in economics from the University of North Carolina.