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Faculty Fellow

Francesca Ammon

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Associate Professor

About

Francesca Russello Ammon is an Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning and Historic Preservation at the School of Design. As a cultural historian of the built environment, her teaching, research, and writing focus on the changing shapes and spaces of the 20th- and 21st-century American city. She grounds her interdisciplinary approach to this subject on the premise that the landscape materializes social relations, cultural values, and economic processes. In particular, she is interested in the ways that visual culture informs planning and design, the dynamic relationships between cities and nature, and the politics of place and space. 

Before joining the School of Design faculty, Ammon was a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has also held the Sally Kress Tompkins Fellowship, jointly sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). While completing her Ph.D. in American Studies, she held long-term fellowships as a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities, Ambrose Monell Foundation Fellow in Technology and Democracy at the Miller Center of Public Affairs, and John E. Rovensky Fellow with the Business History Conference.

For the past year and a half, Ammon has been a Researcher on the Mellon Foundation-funded project on “Photography and/of Architecture” at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. She is also currently a colloquium member of the Penn/Mellon Foundation Humanities + Urbanism + Design Initiative, and she is a recent past fellow of Penn’s Price Lab for Digital Humanities. 

Ammon is on the board of the Society for American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH).

Selected Publications

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2016. Bulldozer: Demolition and Clearance of the Postwar Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2015. “Post-Industrialization and the City of Consumption: Attempted Revitalization in Asbury Park, New Jersey.” Journal of Urban History 41(2): 158-174.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2012. “Unearthing Benny the Bulldozer: The Culture of Clearance in Postwar Children’s Books.” Technology and Culture 53(2): 306-336.

Ammon, Francesca Russello. 2009. “Commemoration Amid Criticism: The Mixed Legacy of Urban Renewal in Southwest Washington, D.C.” Journal of Planning History 8(3): 175-220.

Affiliated PhD Student

Heidi Artigue

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Doctoral Student, Applied Economics, Wharton

About

Heidi is a doctoral student in Wharton's Applied Economics program, focusing on urban and real estate economics. Her ongoing research involves the effects of work from home on real estate markets, and income sorting into small towns. She is also interested in how the location of high-income neighborhoods affects the landscape of low-income jobs. Prior to graduate school, Heidi was a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where she worked with historical geographic data on racial segregation in Philadelphia. Heidi earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics at Pomona College in 2019, where she also earned minors in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Penn IUR Scholar

Raj Chetty

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William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University

Director of Opportunity Insights

About

Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University. He is also the Director of Opportunity Insights, which uses “big data” to understand how to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds better chances of succeeding. Chetty's research combines empirical evidence and economic theory to help design more effective government policies. His work on topics ranging from tax policy and unemployment insurance to education and affordable housing has been widely cited in academia, media outlets, and Congressional testimony.

Chetty received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 and is one of the youngest tenured professors in Harvard's history. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, he was a professor at UC-Berkeley and Stanford University. Chetty has received numerous awards for his research, including a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the John Bates Clark medal, given to the economist under 40 whose work is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the field.

Selected Publications

Raj Chetty, John N Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, Danny Yagan, Income Segregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 135, Issue 3, August 2020, Pages 1567–1633, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa005

Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R Jones, Sonya R Porter, Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: an Intergenerational Perspective, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 135, Issue 2, May 2020, Pages 711–783, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz042

Alex Bell, Raj Chetty, Xavier Jaravel, Neviana Petkova, John Van Reenen, Who Becomes an Inventor in America? The Importance of Exposure to Innovation, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 134, Issue 2, May 2019, Pages 647–713, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy028

Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility II: County-Level Estimates, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 133, Issue 3, August 2018, Pages 1163–1228, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy006

Fellow

Henry Cisneros

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Chairman and Co-Founder, American Triple I Partners

About

Henry Cisneros served as the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in President Bill Clinton’s administration. Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many of the nation’s public housing developments and formulating policies which contributed to achieving the nation’s highest ever homeownership rate.

He is currently chairman of the CityView companies, which work with urban homebuilders to create homes priced within the range of average families, and chairman of Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C., a leading public finance firm.

Cisneros was elected mayor of San Antonio, Texas in 1981, becoming the first Hispanic-American mayor of a major U.S. city. During his four terms as mayor, he helped rebuild the city’s economic base and spurred the creation of jobs through massive infrastructure and downtown improvements. He was selected as the “Outstanding Mayor” in the nation by City and State Magazine in 1986.

After leaving HUD in 1997, Cisneros was president and chief operating officer of Univision Communications, the Spanish-language broadcasting company, and currently serves on its board of directors.

Cisneros holds degrees from Texas A&M University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and The George Washington University. He also has been awarded more than 20 honorary doctorates from leading universities. He has authored and edited several books, and was presented the Common Purpose Award with former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp for demonstrating the potential of bipartisan cooperation.

Fellow

Lei Ding

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Community Development Research Officer, Community Development and Regional Outreach, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Areas of Interest

    About

    Lei Ding is the Community Development Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Ding was initially trained as a mechanical engineer, but his strong interest in social science led him to pursue a Ph.D. in public policy, work as a senior research associate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2005-2009) and later as a faculty member in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University (2009-2013). He joined the Community Development and Regional Outreach Department at the Philadelphia Fed in 2013, conducting research and managing projects on housing and community development topics.

    Ding is a well-known expert on access to credit, housing policy, and gentrification and neighborhood change. He has published numerous articles on the topics of mortgage finance, Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), neighborhood change, and property tax. His recent research on the consequences of gentrification and the effects of the CRA has drawn significant attention from policymakers, practitioners, and the media. It has led to the publication of numerous research articles and has been covered by outlets that include CNN, Bloomberg, NPR, and other major media outlets. Ding has also worked in the public policy arena and contributed to the interagency update to CRA regulation from 2019 to 2022.

    Ding has a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tsinghua University.

    Selected Publications

    Hou, Yilin, Lei Ding, David J. Schwegman, and Alaina G. Barca. (accepted), “Assessment Frequency and Equity of the Real Property Tax: Latest Evidence from Philadelphia,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

    Ding, Lei and Leonard Nakamura. 2021. “Don't Know What You Got Till It’s Gone - The Community Reinvestment Act in a Changing Financial Landscape,” Journal of Real Estate Research, 43(1): 96-122.

    Ding, Lei, Hyojung Lee and Raphael W. Bostic. 2020. “Effects of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) on Small Business Lending.” Journal of Urban Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2020.1808005.

    Ding, Lei, Jackelyn Hwang, and Eileen Divringi. 2016. “Gentrification and residential mobility in Philadelphia,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 61, 38–51.

    Watcher, Susan and Lei Ding. 2016. Shared Prosperity in America’s Communities. Penn Press

    Ding, Lei and Leonard Nakamura. 2016. “The Impact of the Home Valuation Code of Conduct on Appraisal and Mortgage Outcomes,” Real Estate Economics, 44(3), 658–690.

    Ding, Lei, Roberto G. Quercia, Wei Li, and Janneke Ratcliffe. 2011. “Risky Borrowers or Risky Mortgages: Disaggregating Effects Using Propensity Score Models,” Journal of Real Estate Research, 33(2), 245- 276.

    Fellow

    Anne Fadullon

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    Founder and Principal Partner, MAKE Advisory Services, LLC (MAKE)

    About

    Anne Fadullon serves as the Founder and Principal Partner of MAKE Advisory Services, LLC (MAKE), where she provides consulting services focusing on capacity building and mentoring, with specialties in affordable housing and community development. Prior to founding MAKE, Anne served as the inaugural Deputy Mayor for the Department of Planning and Development (DPD) for the City of Philadelphia. In this position she was responsible for leading the Department in its efforts to align expertise and service delivery across a broad range of responsibilities to further the progression of the built environment and to ensure Philadelphia is a great place to invest, live, work and play. In this role, Anne was tasked with creating a new unified Department from six formerly separate and distinct agencies. In addition to these city entities, her purview also included solidifying the relationship with the Department’s sister agency, the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC), a 501(c)(3) tasked with implementing many of the City’s housing programs. During her tenure, Anne successfully merged PHDC, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA) and the Philadelphia Land Bank (PLB), resulting in all staff working for PHDC with management agreements with PRA and PLB. This consolidation ensured the ability to work across entities to ease service delivery to Philadelphia residents and businesses. To ensure coordination amongst the Divisions of DPD, PHDC and the public, Anne served as the Chair of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission, the Board of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and the Board of the Philadelphia Land Bank. These consolidation and coordination efforts resulted in billions of dollars of both market and affordable development and securing affordable housing for tens of thousands of families.

    Prior to her appointment as Deputy Mayor in January of 2016, Anne served as Director of Real Estate and Investment at the Dale Corporation. During her tenure at Dale, she oversaw several in-house development projects including Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects, mixed-income and mixed-use projects, and large-scale commercial projects. She also provided consulting services to third party developers, as well as supporting Dale’s General Contracting Division by serving as a liaison with government officials, agencies and other key stakeholders. Further, during her tenure at Dale, Anne served as the first ever female President of the Building Industry Association (BIA), which represents the City’s residential building industry. During her presidency the membership of the BIA grew exponentially and the organization became known for its willingness to roll up it sleeves and work side by side with agencies and government representatives to develop solutions to industry issues, rather than simply bringing a list of complaints.

    Prior to joining Dale Corporation in April 2000, Anne served as the Director of Planning and Development for the City of Cocoa, Florida. This experience allowed Anne to become well-versed in how to deal with rapid growth in a diverse community. From 1992 to 1997, Anne worked at the then Office of Housing and Community Development and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, cutting her teeth in the affordable housing and community development fields. This combination of public and private sector experience combined with both market-rate and affordable development success, gives Anne a well-rounded perspective on how to implement viable strategies for successful urban communities.

    Anne has a Master’s in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Urban Studies from Lehigh University. She lives in Germantown with her wife and can be found solving all the world’s problems by hiking long distances in the Wissahickon Park.

    Fellow

    Ira Goldstein

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    President, Policy Solutions, Reinvestment Fund

    About

    Ira Goldstein, Ph.D., is the President of Policy Solutions at Reinvestment Fund, a results-oriented, socially responsible community investment group. Since 1999 when he joined Reinvestment Fund, Dr. Goldstein has conducted detailed spatial and statistical analyses in many cities and regions across the US. Those studies are used by local government to craft policy responses and allocate scarce resources based on assessment of the local real estate market conditions. He also has conducted studies of evictions, mortgage foreclosures and abusive lending practices and developed a novel approach to measuring actionable gaps in a community’s childcare environment. His work supported civil rights and consumer protection cases brought by federal, state and local governments. Before joining Reinvestment Fund, Dr. Goldstein served as mid-Atlantic Director of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity for the US Department of HUD.

    For more than 30 years, Dr. Goldstein has been a Lecturer for the University of Pennsylvania’s Urban Studies program. He instructs undergraduates and graduate students in research methods, statistics, and housing policy.

    Selected Publications

    Maybe it Really Does Take A Village: Supporting the creation of high-quality unsubsidized affordable rental housing in legacy cities with Emily Dowdall, Jacob Rosch and Kevin Reeves

    Evictions in Philadelphia with Al Parker and Rhea Acuna

    Demographics and Characteristics of Middle Neighborhoods in Select Legacy Cities with William Schrecker and Jacob Rosch. In Brophy, Paul C. (ed). 2016. On the Edge: America’s middle neighborhoods. NY: The American Assembly

    Making Sense of Markets: Using Data to Guide Reinvestment Strategies. In Federal Reserve Bank of SF & the Urban Institute (eds). 2014. What Counts: Harnessing data for America’s communities.

    Lost Values: A Study of Predatory Lending in Philadelphia. 2007. Philadelphia: Reinvestment Fund.

    Affiliated PhD Student

    Rebecca Jorgensen

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    Phd Candidate in Wharton's Applied Economics Program

    About

    Rebecca Jorgensen is a sixth year PhD student in Wharton's Applied Economics program with research interests in household finance, real estate, and industrial organization economics. Her current research studies how mergers between residential real estate brokerages and mortgage lenders affect the structure of the mortgage market and the interest rate paid by borrowers. Her other work examines how increasing ridership on public transit affects travel time. Prior to graduate school, Rebecca worked as a Research Assistant at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on projects related to financial stability and competition, which is where her interest in mortgage markets began. Rebecca holds a Masters degree in Economics and a Bachelors degree in Quantitative Economics and Mathematics, all from Miami University.

    Affiliated PhD Student

    Jeanna Kenney

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    PhD Candidate in The Wharton School Applied Economics Department

    About

    Jeanna Kenney is an Applied Economics PhD Candidate in The Wharton School studying topics in real estate and urban economics. Her research focuses on the various people and decisions involved in the often complicated process of a home purchase. In particular, her dissertation studies the occupational licensing process for real estate agents and how this affects competition in the brokerage industry and outcomes in local housing markets. 

    Prior to Wharton, Jeanna was a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, working primarily with economists on the Regional economics team studying economic trends in the greater Philadelphia area and issues of bias in home purchase appraisals. She holds a B.A. in Economics with a concentration in Math from Haverford College. A native of nearby Delaware County, Jeanna enjoys reading, baking, and cheering on Philly sports teams.

    Selected Publications

    Calem, P., Kenney, J., Lambie‐Hanson, L., & Nakamura, L. (2021). Appraising home purchase appraisals. Real Estate Economics, 49(S1), 134-168.

    Ferreira, F., Kenney, J., & Smith, B. (2023). Household mobility, networks, and gentrification of minority neighborhoods in the US (NBER Working Paper No. 31480). National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org/papers/w31480

    Affiliated PhD Student

    Yeonhwa Lee

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    Doctoral Candidate, City and Regional Planning

    About

    Yeonhwa Lee is a doctoral student in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores the creation and maintenance of socio-spatial mix in communities in the context of urban regeneration and the role of housing policy and programs in the process. Before coming to Penn, Yeonhwa was co-founder and operations director at an urban data analytics startup in London. Yeonhwa holds a MSc in International Planning from the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from the University of Pennsylvania. 

    Advisory Board Member

    Lawrence Parks

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    CEO and Co-Founder, Forethought Advisors

    About

    Lawrence H. Parks is a co-founder of Forethought Advisors, an advocacy, lobbying and strategic corporate solutions firm specializing in financial services. He has authored parts of several groundbreaking banking legislative initiatives, including key provisions in the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010.

    Prior to the formation of Forethought Advisors, Mr. Parks spent 21 years as Senior Vice President of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. He has also served as Senior Advisor and Director of Strategic Regional Growth and Finance for the Department of Commerce, and as Associate Legislative Counsel and Director at the Mortgage Bankers’ Association.

    Mr. Parks has worked closely with Congress, presidential administrations, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as well as member institutions and national housing and community development advocates to shape regulatory policy in the housing finance and banking industries. He has a J.D. from Yale and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Political Science from Temple University.

    Faculty Fellow

    Vincent Reina

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    Associate Professor

    About

    Vincent Reina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania.  His research focuses on urban economics, low-income housing policy, household mobility,  neighborhood change, and community and economic development. Reina's work has been published in various academic journals, such as Urban StudiesHousing Policy Debate, and Journal of Housing Economics. In 2017 he helped the City of Philadelphia develop its framework and strategy for preserving its stock of existing subsidized housing, and in 2018 worked with City of Philadelphia to write it's first citywide housing plan.  He was given the award for Best Dissertation in Public Policy and Management by the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM), and was recently selected for the APPAM 40 for 40 fellowship.  Reina is a 2018 Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and a 2018 Lincoln Institute for Land Policy Scholar.   Reina was previously a Fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University (NYU), a Research Associate at the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California (USC), a Coro Fellow, and worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  He holds a PhD in Public Policy and Management from USC, an MBA with a concentration in Economics and Real Estate Finance from NYU's Stern School of Business, an MSc in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford, and a BS with honors in Urban Studies from Cornell University. 

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