Staff
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Amy Armstrong Email
Amy Armstrong is the Communications and Policy Director for the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Furman Center, Amy spent more than two years at the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS), working as Special Assistant to the Commissioner, and later as Director of Policy and Planning for the agency. Her work at SBS spanned press and communications, agency strategic planning and research, and policy development. Before landing in New York City, Amy worked on housing and community development issues on the west coast, including program development for the Portland Community Land Trust, an affordable homeownership non-profit in Portland, and serving as a Research Fellow for PolicyLink, a national advocacy organization based in Oakland, California. Amy holds a B.A. in Political Science from Reed College and was a New York City Urban Fellow.
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Vicki Been More info
Vicki Been, the Boxer Family Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and an Associated Professor of Public Policy at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, is Faculty Director of the Furman Center. Vicki teaches courses in Land Use Regulation, Property, and State and Local Government, as well as seminars on The Takings Clause, Environmental Justice, and Empirical Issues in Land Use and Environmental Law. She also co-teaches an interdisciplinary Colloquium on the Law, Economics and Politics of Urban Affairs.
She received a B.S. with high honors from Colorado State University in 1978 and a J.D. from the NYU School of Law in 1983, where she was a Root-Tilden Scholar. After graduation, Vicki served as a law clerk to Judge Edward Weinfeld, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from August 1983 to July 1984 and as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, United States Supreme Court from August 1984 to August 1985. She was an Associate at the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York City for one year, then served as an Associate Counsel at the Office of Independent Counsel: Iran/Contra in Washington, DC. She joined Rutgers University School of Law in Newark as an Associate Professor in August 1988.
She has written extensively on the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause, Environmental Justice, Impact Fees, Housing Affordability, “Smart” Growth, and other land use topics, and is a co-author of Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (with Robert C. Ellickson) (2005, Aspen Law & Business).
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Caroline Bhalla Email
Caroline Bhalla is the Associate Director of the Furman Center, where she began working as a research assistant in 2002. Initially, Caroline secured and processed the data necessary for NYCHANIS, wrote and edited the 2002 and 2003 volumes of the State of NYC’s Housing and Neighborhoods report, and worked with consultants on the user-testing of NYCHANIS. In 2004 she was promoted to project director where she was charged with the launch of the NYCHANIS website. She also assumed the management of the production of the Furman Center’s annual State of the City’s Housing and Neighborhoods. In 2008, Caroline was promoted to associate director, assuming responsibility for human relations, finance and fundraising for the Furman Center.
Caroline earned her B.A. in Mass Communications/ Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley. After graduation, she served for two years as an assistant account executive at Graham & Associates, a San Francisco public relations agency. Caroline received an M.A. in Culture and Communication from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education in 2004 and an M.A. in American Studies from NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science in 2008. Caroline served as an adjunct professor in NYU’s Department of Culture and Communication, where she taught courses in Interviewing Strategies and Conflict Resolution. She has guest lectured in the Department on such issues as cultural identity, gender socialization, and Native American representation.
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Sarah Gerecke Email
Sarah Gerecke is Executive Director of the Furman Center. Sarah is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Planning at the NYU Wagner School where she teaches a seminar in land use, housing and community development in New York City to Wagner and Law students. Until July 2009, she was Chief Executive Officer of Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) of NYC, where she supervised lending, education, community development and real estate programs that resulted in $185 million invested in underserved communities in 2008, assisting over 11,000 residents. She joined NHS as Chief Operating Officer in 2001. From 1994-2001, Sarah was Vice President for Housing Programs at Westhab, Inc., Westchester’s largest provider of housing for homeless and disadvantaged residents, where she supervised supportive housing and transitional residential programs.
Sarah served in various positions in New York City government between 1986 and 1994, including Assistant Commissioner for Production and Planning for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Assistant to Deputy Mayor Robert Esnard. From 1984 – 1986, she practiced real estate law for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School (magna cum laude) and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (cum laude). Ms. Gerecke was a New York City Urban Fellow and has received numerous awards including HPD Outstanding Alumna. She lives in the Bronx with her husband, Jeff, a literary agent, and her two daughters, Renata and Claudia.
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Ingrid Gould Ellen More info
Ingrid Gould Ellen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at New York University’s Wagner School and Co-Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Her research centers on neighborhoods, housing, and residential segregation. Professor Ellen is author of Sharing America’s Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration (Harvard University Press, 2000) and has been published in such journals as Urban Studies, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, and Housing Policy Debate. She is currently undertaking a national study of economic change in U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, she is studying the interaction between investments in schools and subsidized housing and examining why some parcels of land remain underdeveloped, even in hot markets. Professor Ellen teaches courses in microeconomics, urban economics, and urban policy research. Before coming to NYU, Professor Ellen held visiting positions at the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. She attended Harvard University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics, an M.P.P., and a Ph.D. in public policy.
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Josiah Madar Email
Josiah Madar is a Research Fellow at the Furman Center. He received his B.S.A.D in architecture from M.I.T. in 1997 and a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2002. Between his undergraduate and law school years, Josiah worked as an urban planner at Sasaki Associates in Watertown, Massachusetts, where he contributed to several college and university facility and transportation master plans. Before joining the Furman Center, Josiah was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell practicing corporate and real estate law for a variety of corporate and private equity clients and, on a pro bono basis, New York non-profit organizations.
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Simon McDonnell Email
Simon McDonnell is a Research Fellow at the Furman Center. He graduated with a BA in Economics from University College Dublin (UCD) in 2000 and after a period working for Deloitte & Touche in New York, he received an MSc in Environmental Economics and Policy from UCD in 2003. This research investigated the economic and environmental impacts of an environmental levy on plastic shopping bags imposed by the Irish Government. Simon graduated from UCD with a PhD in transport and environmental economics and policy in early 2007. This research, using stated choice methodology, investigated the welfare impacts of bus rapid transit attributes for a bus priority scheme in Dublin, Ireland. He was in receipt of the Government of Ireland Scholarship from The Irish Research Council of Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS). Simon was also Irish coordinator on a trans-European research project investigating transport sustainability - TranSust.Scan. Before joining the Furman Center, Simon spent a year as a visiting assistant professor with the Urban Planning Program and the Institute of Environmental Science and Policy (IESP) in the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Bethany O’Neill Email
Bethany O’Neill is the administrative assistant at the Furman Center. She earned her B.S. in Food Science & Human Nutrition from the University of Florida. Following graduation, Bethany spent a year splitting her time between working as a teaching assistant for undergraduate nutrition courses and managing staff at a financial transcription service. At the Furman Center, she is enjoying the opportunity to learn about urban planning and housing in New York City. Bethany is interested in environmental and conservation issues.
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Vincent Reina Email
Vincent Reina is the Herbert Z. Gold Housing Fellow at the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Furman Center, he worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation as a Senior Program Officer in their Affordable Housing Preservation Initiative, where he was involved in assessing the feasibility of, and structuring financing for, preservation transactions. Vincent has also worked as a Project Manager in HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing and as a Community Planning and Development Representative in the Office of Community Planning and Development. In addition, Vincent was a Coro Community Fellow and is currently an Associate at the Centre for the Analysis of South African Social Policy. He earned a B.S. in Urban Studies from Cornell University and an MSc in Comparative Social Policy from Oxford University.
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Stephen Roberts Email
Stephen Roberts is the Database Project Manager at the Furman Center. Steve received his Master of Public Administration degree from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and his B.A. in Economics from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Prior to Wagner, he worked in the technology field designing software to track charitable giving to non-profit organizations, analyzing and reporting on giving trends, and creating models to predict future giving. Stephen has also designed software to process real estate transactions for a repeat-sales home price index.
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Claudia Sitgraves Email
Claudia Sitgraves is a Research Fellow at the Furman Center. She received an AB magna cum laude in economics from Harvard University in 2002, an MSc in economics and philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2003, and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. During her tenure at Berkeley, Claudia was a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, received further funding from Berkeley’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics and the Institute of Business and Economic Research, and spent a summer conducting dissertation research at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC. Claudia’s research in the area of real estate focuses on the effects of housing market fluctuations on household financial decision making, including spending and investment decisions.
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Max Weselcouch Email
Max Weselcouch is the Data Manager and a Research Analyst at the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Furman Center, she was a research assistant at RESI of Towson University, a non-profit economics research group located in Baltimore, Maryland. While at RESI, she devoted most of her time to studying welfare and subsidized childcare expenses in Maryland. Max received a B.A. with honors in Mathematics and Dance from Goucher College in 2005. She also spent a year studying biostatistics at John Hopkins University as a mental health trainee sponsored by the National Institute on Mental Health.
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Mark Willis Email
Mark Willis is a Resident Research Fellow at the Furman Center. Before joining the Center, Mark was a Visiting Scholar at the Ford Foundation, working on research related to community development and the financial services sector. Prior to his time at Ford, Mark spent 19 years at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing its community development programs and products to help strengthen low- and moderate-income communities. Among his many accomplishments there, Mark founded the Chase Community Development Corporation. Before joining Chase, Mark held various positions in economic development and tax policy with the City of New York, including Deputy Commissioner for Development at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and worked as an urban economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Mark co-chairs Housing First! in New York City and has previously chaired the New York Community Investment Company and the Consumer Bankers Association’s Community Reinvestment Committee, and co-chaired Living Cities: The National Community Development Initiative. Mr. Willis has also served as a member of the Bankers/Community Collaborative Council of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. He currently serves on a number of boards including the executive committees of the Center for Housing Policy and the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce as well as the advisory board of the Office of Financial Empowerment of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs. Mark teaches Housing and Community Development Policy jointly at New York University’s Law and Wagner schools. He has a B.A. degree in economics from Yale University, a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. degree in urban economics and industrial organization from Yale University.
