Leah Brooks is Co-Director of the Center for Washington Area Studies and Associate Professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University.  Her research interest is urban political economy.  Her work to date includes an examination of Business Improvement Districts to understand the resolution of collective action problems, and an analysis of the Community Development Block Grant program to understand the political economy of grant giving at the municipal and sub-municipal levels.  She has documented the existence and analyzed the impacts of municipally-imposed tax and expenditure limits, studied the premium required to assemble land, analyzed the long-term effects of streetcars on urban form, and is hard at work examining the impact of containerization on cities.

She graduated with a BA from the University of Chicago in 1998, and a PhD in Economics from UCLA in 2005.  Before arriving at George Washington University, she taught economics at the University of Toronto and McGill University, and served as an Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Website
lfbrooks at gwu.edu

Garry Young's policy research focuses mainly on urban issues such as the factors that affect urban economic performance, the role that bicycle infrastructure plays in regional transportation systems, and the contentious relationship between national capitals and their national governments.

His political science research emphasizes legislative institutions, especially the interplay between institutional dynamics and the representation of constituents.

His work appears in a number of top academic journals including the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and Legislative Studies Quarterly.  His work has been funded by a variety of sources including the National Science Foundation, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

He received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1994.

youngg at gwu.edu

Nancy Y. Augustine, Ph.D., has been a member of the faculty of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, The George Washington University, since 2006. She has more than 10 years of experience teaching graduate-level classes in urban policy as well as core courses in the public policy and public administration curricula. Her most recent research identified career opportunities for low-wage immigrant working women (primarily Hispanic) in the U.S., Commissioned by the Women’s Bureau of the U.S Department of Labor (DOL). A current project examines administrative arrangements with an agency of the District of Columbia government, and looks for feasible options to improve its response to housing code violations in low-income housing. Prof. Augustine's teaching and research are informed by more than 25 years of experience in various aspects of local government policy formation, research, implementation and evaluation, including more than ten years of experience as an urban planner at the local government level. In recent years, she has worked for the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Conference of State Legislatures and Economic Systems, Inc.  She received a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia, a Master of Arts in Economics from Georgetown University, and a PhD in public policy and public administration from George Washington University.

nya at gwu.edu

Jaclene Begley is an economist in the research group at Fannie Mae. Her current research focuses on housing affordability, homeownership, mortgages, and the housing decisions of older adults.  Prior to Fannie Mae, Jaclene was an assistant professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and spent a summer as a graduate researcher at the University of Hong Kong. Jaclene received her doctorate in public policy from NYU Wagner, where she was a doctoral fellow at the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. She also has a master's degree in city planning from UC Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Notre Dame.

Kathryn Howell is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work focuses on affordable housing and public spaces to explore neighborhood change, governance and conflicts in physical and social spaces within communities. She has specifically looked at the preservation of affordable housing in Washington, DC, examining the intersection between policies, governance and the built environment. She was previously a practitioner in local government developing housing and community development policy in Washington, DC and Maryland agencies.

She holds a PhD in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors in Political Science from the University of Georgie.

klhowell at vcu.edu

Brian J. McCabe is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and an affiliated faculty member in the McCourt School of Public Policy.  His first book, No Place Like Home: Wealth, Community and the Politics of Homeownership, was published by Oxford University Press.  He is currently working on a project about the role of housing authorities in distributing assistance through the Housing Choice Voucher program.

Jenny Schuetz is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.  She has published extensively about housing policy, land use regulation, urban amenities, and neighborhood change.  Jenny received a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, a Master’s in City Planning from M.I.T., and a B.A. with Highest Distinction in Economics and Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia.  Jenny previously served as a Principal Economist in the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.  She also taught at the University of Southern California and at City College of New York, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

Website
jschuetz at brookings.edu

Hilary Silver is Chair and Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University, and Professor Emerita of Urban Studies and Sociology at Brown University.  She served two terms as Editor of the journal, City & Community.  Silver's urban research includes homelessness, housing policies, neighborhood change, metropolitan inequality, and urban poverty generally.  Silver's two feature-length films -- Southside: The Fall and Rise of an Inner-city Neighborhood and Direction Home, following seven chronically homeless individuals over seven years -- aired on RI Public Television.

hilarysilver at gwu.edu

Rachel Shank is a first year Master of Public Administration student and Graduate Assistant at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration with the intent to pursue Metropolitan Administration studies. In 2014, she was elected Study Body President at the University of New Mexico. In this role she represented undergraduate constituents at the state and local level by promoting continued access to higher education through the New Mexico Legislative Lottery Scholarship and advocating for capital outlay to fund university enhancement projects. Rachel also chaired the university’s Student Fee Review Board, which ultimately recommended the allocation of approximately $30 million in student fees to the Board of Regents.

Rachel received her BA in International Studies and Political Science from the University of New Mexico.

rshank at gwu.edu