Campus & Community

Joint Center for Housing names 2003-4 fellows

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Seven leaders in community development and housing were recently appointed fellows to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The fellowship program offers leaders in the field of housing an opportunity to explore emerging research areas and to work closely with the center’s research team. Fellowships are awarded for an academic year and in some cases fellows are re-appointed for consecutive years.

“The fellows for the forthcoming year are an all-star team in the arena of housing and community development,” said Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center. “We look forward to sharing their expertise with the Harvard community.”

The new fellows and their areas of interest are as follows:

Emmanuel Fiadzo is currently working for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Fiadzo previously served as the economic and financial adviser to the prime minister of the Central African Republic. His areas of interest are economics and international housing policy.

Jack Goodman is president of Hartrey Advisors, which specializes in studies of market trends for strategic planning in multifamily and single-family housing and in technical support of ongoing research within real estate companies, industry organizations, and government agencies. Goodman served as vice president of research and chief economist at the National Multi Housing Council for four years prior to forming Hartrey Advisors in 2000. Previously, he has worked as senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board, as a member of the economics faculty at the University of Virginia, and as a member of the senior research staff at the Urban Institute.

Steve Hornburg most recently served as executive director of the Research Institute for Housing America – a national independent research organization devoted to expanding housing and mortgage markets to all Americans. Prior to heading the institute, Hornburg was senior director of policy for the Fannie Mae Foundation, where he managed the policy research agenda of the Office of Housing Research. His areas of interest are housing policy and housing markets.

Shekar Narasimhan was managing director for Agency and Funds Management at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company. Prior to that, he served as chairman and CEO of the WMF Group Ltd., a publicly traded commercial mortgage financial services company, which was acquired by Prudential in 2000. Narasimhan built WMF to a position recognized as a leader in providing multifamily and commercial real estate financing in the United States. His area of interest is housing finance.

Reappointed fellows and their areas of interest are as follows:

Barbara Alexander is senior adviser to UBS Warburg, where she served as a managing director from 1992 to 1999. She is an active member of the Joint Center for Housing Studies’ Policy Advisory Board. Alexander has been a securities analyst and an investment banker, and is a leading expert on the housing and home furnishings sectors. Her area of interest is the residential construction industry.

Rachel Bratt is a professor at Tufts University, where she served as a chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from 1995 to 2001. She is a leading expert on the housing and community development sectors. Bratt has been on the Tufts faculty since 1976. Her areas of interest are housing policy and affordability.

Cushing Dolbeare is a housing policy expert and founder of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Since the early 1950s, Dolbeare has helped to set housing policy and hold the government accountable for the needs of people who have no political voice. In 2000, Congress appointed Dolbeare to be a commissioner on the Millennial Housing Commission. In 2002 she received the Eighth Annual Heinz Award for the Human Condition. Her area of interest is housing for low-income people.