Penn IUR Announces Recipients of 12th Annual Urban Leadership Awards

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – March 29, 2016 – The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is proud to announce the recipients of its 12^th annual Urban Leadership Awards, which recognize leaders who are guiding cities toward a sustainable and vibrant future. The 2016 awardees are Angela Glover Blackwell, President & CEO of PolicyLink, and Jeremy Nowak, President of J Nowak and Associates. Penn IUR will honor the work of these exceptional leaders on April 7th at its 12^th annual Urban Leadership Forum.

Angela Glover Blackwell, President and CEO, started PolicyLink in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.

Jeremy Nowak operates a consulting firm that specializes in social investment, urban policy, and strategy. He was the President of the William Penn Foundation in 2011 and 2012, where he developed the blueprint for their current grant making. Currently he is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research, and former chair of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

The Annual Penn IUR Urban Leadership Awards recognize exemplary thinkers who have demonstrated the vision to revitalize urban centers, respond to urban crises, and champion urban sustainability in the United States and around the globe. This year’s awardees exemplify true urban visionaries and the transformative effects such leaders can have on the fabric of the cities in which they work.

All media interested in attending the award event on April 7^th can contact Deborah Lang at dlang@upenn.edu or 215.880.2372.

About the 2015 Awardees

Angela Glover Blackwell, President and CEO, started PolicyLink in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.

Prior to founding PolicyLink, Angela served as Senior VP at the Rockefeller Foundation. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Oakland (CA) Urban Strategies Council, where she pioneered new approaches to neighborhood revitalization. From 1977 to 1987, Angela was a partner at Public Advocates.

Angela is the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010), and contributed to Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream (The New Press, 2007) and The Covenant with Black America (Third World Press, 2006). In 2013, Angela and PolicyLink collaborated with the Center for American Progress to write and release All In Nation: An America that Works for All.

Angela earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She serves on numerous boards and served as co-chair of the Task Force on Poverty for the Center for American Progress. Angela currently serves on The President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.

Jeremy Nowak operates a consulting firm that specializes in social investment, urban policy, and strategy. He was the President of the William Penn Foundation in 2011 and 2012, where he developed the blueprint for their current grant making. Jeremy was the founding CEO of The Reinvestment Fund (TRF). During his tenure more than $1 billion of investments in support of housing, small businesses, and community facilities was allocated to urban neighborhoods in the mid-Atlantic. He also launched a real estate development company, a public policy consultancy, and a spatial analytics firm (policymap.com) through the TRF platform.

Currently he is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research. In 2012 and 2013 he was appointed to chair the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, as part of this six-year tenure at the Reserve Bank (2008 to 2013). Active in Philadelphia’s civic life, he was the founding Board Chair of Mastery Charter Schools, a network of seventeen inner-city schools that continues to receive national attention for student achievement. In 1995, Mr. Nowak received the Philadelphia Award, the city’s highest civic honor.

He has authored numerous articles and chapters in books on subjects as diverse as development finance, urban place making, and housing policy. He holds a B.A. degree in Philosophy from The Pennsylvania State University (1973) and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the New School for Social Research (1986), where his dissertation won the Alfred Schutz award. 

About the Penn IUR Urban Leadership Award

Since 2005, Penn IUR has recognized innovators in urban affairs through the Urban Leadership Award. Past recipients include: Michael Nutter, Former Mayor of Philadelphia; Renée Lewis Glover, Chair, Board of Directors, Habitat for Humanity International, and Former President and CEO, Atlanta Housing Authority; Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon, co-founders of Project HOME Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and former Mayor of Barcelona, Spain; Yael Lehmann, Executive Director of The Food Trust; Ridwan Kamil, Founder and Principal of Urbane Indonesia; Derek R.B. Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement, University of Chicago and former Special Assistant to President Barack Obama, White House Domestic Policy Council; Paul Levy, President and CEO, Philadelphia’s Center City District; Lily Yeh, Global Artist and Founder, Barefoot Artists; Raphael Bostic, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Jane Golden, Executive Director, City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program; Shirley Franklin, Mayor, City of Atlanta, GA; Parris Glendening, President, Smart Growth Leadership Institute, and former Governor, Maryland; Bruce Katz, Vice President and Founding Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program, The Brookings Institution; William Hudnut III, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Urban Land Institute, and former Mayor, Indianapolis, IN; Joseph P. Riley, Jr., Mayor, City of Charleston, SC; and Donna Shalala, President, University of Miami and former Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

About Penn IUR

The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is dedicated to advancing cross-disciplinary urban-focused research, instruction, and civic engagement on issues relevant to cities around the world. As the global population becomes increasingly urban, understanding cities is vital to informed decision-making and public policy at the local, national, and international levels. Penn IUR focuses on research that informs the sustainable and inclusive twenty-first-century city. By providing a forum for collaborative scholarship and instruction at Penn and beyond, Penn IUR stimulates research and engages with urban practitioners and policymakers to inform urban policy.

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