Staff
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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 Associate Professor of Public Policy at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, is 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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Sean Capperis Email
Sean Capperis is a Data Manager and Research Analyst at the Furman Center. Prior to the Furman Center, Sean was a property valuation modeler for the City of New York’s Department of Finance. He has also worked in research and communications roles for Pittsburgh City Council and Cool Space Locator, a community development-focused real estate brokerage in Pittsburgh. He holds an M.P.A. from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a B.A. summa cum laude/Phi Beta Kappa in urban studies and English writing from the University of Pittsburgh. At NYU Wagner, Sean was a Research Assistant at the Furman Center, a David Bohnett Public Service Fellow, and Mayor’s Office Fellow for the City of Chicago. His interests include spatial data analysis methods, public and real estate finance, land use policy, and labor markets.
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Jorge De la Roca Email
Jorge De la Roca is a Research Fellow at the Furman Center. His fields of interest include urban, real estate and labor economics with a particular focus on the study of agglomeration economies. At the Furman Center he is working in the areas of neighborhood change and land use regulation. He completed his BA in Economics at Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, and his MPhil and PhD in Economics at CEMFI. His dissertation provides a quantitative assessment of several mechanisms that generate earnings differentials across cities of different sizes. Before joining the Furman Center, Jorge worked as a research assistant at the Center for International Development CID at Harvard University, the International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI in Washington, DC and the Group for the Analysis of Development GRADE in Lima.
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Ingrid Gould Ellen More info
Ingrid Gould Ellen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service 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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Ben Gross Email
Ben Gross is the Herbert and Lorraine Podell Fellow at the Furman Center. His research focuses on the emerging role of technology in urban life as well as tenant decision-making and the evolving profile of low-income landlords. Prior to joining the center, Ben worked with New Haven’s Livable City Initiative as a Yale Public Interest Fellow, where he oversaw the modernization of the city’s code enforcement apparatus and organized an outdoor film fest on the New Haven Green. He received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and served as a director of the Landlord/Tenant clinic. Ben received a MPhil in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar, and earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Northwestern University.
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Andrew Hayashi Email
Andrew Hayashi is the Nourallah Elghanayan Research Fellow at the Furman Center. His research at the Center focuses on the effects of tax policy on real estate and housing markets. He received a B.S.F.S., magna cum laude, in philosophy and international economics from Georgetown University in 2002, an M.Sc. in economics and philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2003, and a J.D., Order of the Coif, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008. His dissertation research covered topics in behavioral law and economics and he continues to do research in this area, particularly as applied to tax policy. While at Berkeley , Andrew was a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholar, a Berkeley Law and Economics Fellow, and received research funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. Before joining the Furman Center Andrew was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, where he practiced tax law.
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John Infranca Email
John Infranca is the Jonathan L. Mechanic/Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Fellow at the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Center, he served as a law clerk to Judge Julio Fuentes, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Judge Berle Schiller, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. John received a J.D., Order of the Coif, from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the New York University Law Review, a Lederman Fellow in Law and Economics, and a fellow in the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program. He also earned a B.A and an M.T.S. degree from the University of Notre Dame. After college and during graduate school, John worked with a number of homeless services organizations, as a case manager for refugees, and as the director of a service learning program in Mexico. He has authored law review articles on the Earned Income Tax Credit and the informal economy and on protecting Social Security benefits from bank freezes and garnishments. At the Furman Center, John’s research focuses on land use regulation and affordable housing.
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Rebecca Koepnick Email
Rebecca Koepnick is the Director of the Moelis Institute for Affordable Housing Policy. For the past three years, Rebecca served as a policy advisor to Secretary Shaun Donovan at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she developed policy, legislation, and congressional strategy for multiple initiatives including the Administration’s Rental Assistance Demonstration to preserve public housing and the Strong Cities and Strong Communities pilot to support distressed cities across the country. Prior to her service at HUD, Rebecca worked at New York City’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, and Abt Associates. She brings to the Moelis Institute deep substantive knowledge about many aspects of housing and community development, broad experience in working with a wide network of policymakers in New York City, Washington, and around the country, and a proven track record of injecting research evidence into policy debates about improving affordable housing programs.
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Josiah Madar Email
Josiah Madar is a Research Fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, where his research focuses on mortgage lending, foreclosure, neighborhood stabilization, residential development and land use regulation. Before joining the Furman Center in 2007, Josiah was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he practiced 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. 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. Before law school, Josiah worked as an urban planner at Sasaki Associates in Watertown, Massachusetts from 1997 to 1999.
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Shannon Moriarty Email
Shannon Moriarty is the Communications Director at the Furman Center, where she works to bring the Center’s research and policy work to the public, media, and other stakeholders. Prior to joining the Center, she was founding writer and editor of Change.org’s End Homelessness blog, where she provided daily commentary and analysis on housing and homelessness issues. Previously, she was a Research Assistant at the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Communications Director at United for a Fair Economy. Shannon holds a B.A. in Political Science from Bridgewater State University, where she was an Adrian Tinsley Scholar, a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University, and an M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University.
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Bethany O’Neill Email
Bethany O’Neill is the Administrative Associate at the Furman Center. She earned her B.S. in Food Science & Human Nutrition from the University of Florida, and is pursuing an M.A. in Food Studies at New York University. Bethany is interested in food policy issues and the local food movement. At the Furman Center, she is enjoying the opportunity to learn about urban planning and housing in New York City.
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Laura Vert Email
Laura Vert is the Fiscal and Grants Manager at the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Furman Center, Laura spent four years as the Administrative Manager at the Brooklyn Autism Center, a non-profit school that provides behavioral therapy and educational services for students on the autism spectrum. In this position, Laura was focused primarily on financial and human resource management, but also worked in the areas of development, strategic planning, special events and marketing. Laura holds a B.A. in English and American Literature from New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences and an M.P.A. from CUNY Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs. She also holds PHR (Professional in Human Resources) certification.
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Max Weselcouch Email
Max Weselcouch is a 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, and she spent a year studying biostatistics at John Hopkins University as a mental health trainee sponsored by the National Institute on Mental Health. She is currently pursuing an M.U.P. at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
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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.
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Jessica Yager Email
Jessica Yager is the Policy Director at the Furman Center. Prior to joining the Center, she was the founding Director of the Foreclosure Prevention Project at Queens Legal Services, where she developed and managed a project that represents low- and moderate-income homeowners facing foreclosure in Queens, engaged in policy reform efforts to increase fairness and transparency in the foreclosure process, and conducted outreach to educate homeowners about how to avoid foreclosure and predatory lending. Jessica has worked as a Senior Staff Attorney at the Office of the Appellate Defender, a public defender office that specializes in appeals; and as a Clinical Fellow at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law, where she represented clients in civil rights cases in federal court. She also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Napoleon A. Jones, Jr., United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Jessica received a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University.
