Brad Lander is a New York City Council Member representing Brooklyn’s 39th District. Lander is co-chair of the Council’s Progressive Caucus and former director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. Before joining Pratt, Lander served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, community-based organization in Brooklyn that develops affordable housing, creates economic opportunities, and organizes tenants and workers. Lander also served as the Housing & Community Development chair of Brooklyn's Community Board 6, on the board of directors of the Jewish Funds for Justice and Grassroots Leadership, as policy co-chair of Housing First!, and on several panels advising the City of New York on public policy issues. Lander received his BA from the University of Chicago, a Masters in Social Anthropology from the University College London, and a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Pratt.

John Mollenkopf directs the Center for Urban Research and is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center. He has authored or edited many books on urban politics and urban policy, including the prize-winning volumes Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age, and Place Matters: A Metropolitics for the 21st Century. He participates in several national and international research networks and has been a consultant to many public agencies. Prior to joining the Graduate Center in 1981, he directed the Economic Development Division of the New York City Department of City Planning and taught at Stanford. He received his Ph.D from Harvard University and BA from Carleton College.

John Mollenkopf directs the Center for Urban Research and is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center. He has authored or edited many books on urban politics and urban policy, including the prize-winning volumes Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age, and Place Matters: A Metropolitics for the 21st Century. He participates in several national and international research networks and has been a consultant to many public agencies. Prior to joining the Graduate Center in 1981, he directed the Economic Development Division of the New York City Department of City Planning and taught at Stanford. He received his Ph.D from Harvard University and BA from Carleton College.

Steven Romalewski joined the City University of New York in January 2006 to launch and direct the CUNY Mapping Service as a project of the Center for Urban Research at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Romalewski was awarded a Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University in 1995, and received his MS in urban planning from Columbia in 1998. He also teaches graduate-level GIS courses at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment. Prior to joining CUR, Romalewski co-founded and directed the Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP) at NYPIRG.

Lesley Hirsch is the director of the at the Center for Urban Research. Lesley has held senior research and evaluation positions developing policy-relevant research for over fifteen years, working with stakeholders to improve urban policies, programs, and practices. Most recently, she was the research director at the Education Law Center, a public interest law and advocacy firm representing more than 300,000 children who live in New Jersey's poorest cities. She is a CUNY doctoral student in political science had has taught theories of policy process and New York City politics at City College.

Joseph Pereira is the Director of the CUNY Data Service. He has extensive experience with all Census data sets and has conducted many analyses on key trends, most recently on low wage labor markets in the metropolitan U.S. He earned his doctorate in sociology at the University of Massachusetts and has also conducted extensive research on the educational and labor market outcomes of minority groups in New York City, with a particular emphasis on Latinos. He works closely with the three Census Information Centers in New York City.

Laura Wolf-Powers is an Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design. Her work focuses on job-centered economic development, workforce development, urban political economy, and the role of community-based organizations in urban political governance. Prior to joining the faculty at PennDesign, she served as a faculty member and Chairperson of City and Regional Planning at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She received a BA from Yale University, a Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and a doctorate in Urban Planning and Policy from the Edward J. Bloustein School at Rutgers University.

James Parrott is the Deputy Director and Chief Economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute where he helps direct the Institute's analysis of the NYC and MTA budgets, and analyses of labor market, wage and income trends. He has conducted numerous reports on various sectors of the city's economy, and on workforce development issues, and he works extensively on economic policy issues such as minimum wage, living wage, unemployment insurance reform. He was recently appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to the Governor's Tax Reform and Fairness Commission.

Michael P. Jacobson is the current Director of the Vera Institute of Justice and the the author of Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime and End Mass Incarceration (New York University Press 2005). A Ph.D. in sociology, he has an ongoing academic career, and was a professor at both the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Michael also has over twenty years of government service; he served as the New York City Correction Commissioner, the New York City's Probation Commissioner, he worked in the New York City Office of Management as the as the Deputy Budget Director, and was appointed to the New York State Permanent Sentencing Commission by Chief Judge of New York State, Jonathan Lippmann. In December 2012 it was announced that he would be leaving Vera to head a new public and fiscal policy institute at the City University of New York.

Martha W. King is a doctoral student in sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, doing research on organizational behavior and change among civic groups; race, ethnicity, and discrimination; and consumerism. She is also a management and strategy consultant to non-profit, philanthropic and governmental organizations. Prior to her consulting work, Martha was the vice president of development for Single Stop USA and director of policy for the After-School Corporation, and has also worked for the Vera Institute of Justice, the New Jersey Office of Management and Budget, and the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES). Martha has dual masters degrees in Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Aaron M. Pallas is a Professor of Sociology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University. He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and Northwestern University, and served as a statistician at the National Center for Education Statistics in the U.S. Department of Education. He is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and an elected member of the Sociological Research Association. His most recent projects are explicitly designed to inform policy makers and other stakeholders about conditions in New York City.

Andrew White is director of the Center for New York City Affairs at Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy. He is a writer on New York City politics, government, neighborhoods, and the human services sector. He is the co-founder and editor of Child Welfare Watch, founder of the Center for an Urban Future, former editor of City Limits magazine, and executive director of City Limits Community Information Services. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, the Daily News, El Diario La Prensa, the American Prospect, and other publications. He received his Masters in Journalism from the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Dina Bakst is the Co-Founder and Co-President of A Better Balance. Previously Dina Bakst was an attorney with Legal Momentum, formerly known as the NOW Legal Defense & Education fund. She currently serves on the Board of the New York Women's Agenda and is a National Commissioner of the Anti-Defamation League. She received her Law and Bachelor degrees from the University of Michigan.

Sherry Leiwant co-founded A Better Balance in 2005. From 2005 to 2006, she was an Adjunct Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law teaching an upper level class on civil rights. From 1996 until 2005, Sherry was a senior staff attorney at NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund running the State Advocacy Project, working on issues intersecting women’s rights and poverty, including reproductive health, violence and child care. Prior to joining NOW Legal Defense Fund, she spent twelve years as a senior staff attorney at the Welfare Law Center, a national legal organization doing litigation and public advocacy on a variety of income support issues around the country. Sherry graduated from Princeton University and Columbia University School of Law School.

Dr. Janet Gornick is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the City University of New York (CUNY). She is also Director of LIS (formerly known as the Luxembourg Income Study), an international data archive and research center located in Luxembourg, with a satellite office – the LIS Center – at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has published articles on gender and social policy in several journals, including the American Sociological Review, the Annual Review of Sociology, the Journal of European Social Policy, and Social Science Quarterly. She is the co-author of Families that Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment. Dr. Gornick received her doctorate from Harvard University.

Ruth Finkelstein is the Senior Vice President for Policy and Planning at The New York Academy of Medicine, where she directs policy initiatives to promote healthy aging, to improve population health by preventing disease, and to reduce health disparities. One of the architects of the original Ryan White CARE Act, Dr. Finkelstein has authored policy studies that have influenced changes during each reauthorization cycle. She currently directs the Age-friendly New York City initiative (a joint project with the Mayor’s Office and the City Council) and is the Director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre on Aging, Globalization and Urbanization. Dr. Finkelstein holds a doctorate in health policy from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Thomas Kamber is the founding executive director of Older Adults Technology Services (OATS). Prior to launching OATS, Dr. Kamber held senior management positions at nonprofit housing and technology organizations, as well as political campaigns at the local, state, and national level. Dr. Kamber teaches courses on social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, urban research, and the social impact of technology at Columbia University, is a visiting fellow at the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School, and has published widely on public policy topics. He has a BA from Columbia College and a Ph.D from the City University of New York.

Benjamin Dulchin is the Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, a membership association of more than ninety neighborhood-based groups in New York City committed to the preservation and production of affordable housing. At ANHD, Benjamin has led successful efforts to support affordable housing in all its aspects, including increasing funding for development, improving government housing production policies, expanding funding resources for community organizing, and strengthening tenants’ rights laws. Benjamin has been a housing activist and community organizer for eighteen years, with previous jobs as Director of Organizing at the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn, and as a tenant organizer on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He received his degree from the Vassar College.

Moses Gates is the Director of CHAMP at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD). Previously, he worked at the St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation. He also worked with the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development as a Housing Development Specialist, and the National Association of Housing Cooperatives as a Project Specialist. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin, his Masters of Urban Planning from Hunter College, and is currently a visiting assistant professor of demography at the Pratt Institute.

Barika Williams is the Policy Director at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD). She has worked for both New York Metropolitan Center for Urban Education as a Project Associate, and at the Urban Institute as Research Associate. Ms. Williams also served as a PolicyLink Research Fellow at the Beloved Community Center. She received her BA from the Washington University in St. Louis, and her Masters in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Brad Lander is a New York City Council Member representing Brooklyn’s 39th District. Lander is co-chair of the Council’s Progressive Caucus and former director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. Before joining Pratt, Lander served for a decade as executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, community-based organization in Brooklyn that develops affordable housing, creates economic opportunities, and organizes tenants and workers. Lander also served as the Housing & Community Development chair of Brooklyn's Community Board 6, on the board of directors of the Jewish Funds for Justice and Grassroots Leadership, as policy co-chair of Housing First!, and on several panels advising the City of New York on public policy issues. Lander received his BA from the University of Chicago, a Masters in Social Anthropology from the University College London, and a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Pratt.

Michael Freedman-Schnapp is the Director of Policy for New York City Council Member Brad Lander and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment where he teaches demographic and economic analysis to urban planners. He also serves as the President of the Advisory Board for the Riders Alliance, dedicated to winning better transit by organizing transit riders into a powerful political constituency. Michael has worked extensively in the intersection of community organizing and urban policy in New York City, including as co-chair of the board of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a civic organization in North Brooklyn, and as the Senior Policy Associate at the New York Industrial Retention Network. He holds a Masters of Urban Planning from NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service and a BA from the University of Virginia.

Thomas Kochan is the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the Institute for Work and Employment Research. He came to MIT in 1980 as a Professor of Industrial Relations. From 1988 to 1991, he served as Head of the Behavioral and Policy Sciences Area in the Sloan School. Prof. Kochan came to MIT from Cornell University where he was on the faculty of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations from 1973 to 1980. He received his Ph.D in Industrial Relations from the University of Wisconsin.

Megan Golden is a fellow at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a consultant to nonprofit organizations and government on performance management and social impact bonds. From 1999-2011, Megan was the Director of Planning and Government Innovation at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she worked in partnership with government to implement innovations in criminal justice, juvenile justice, child welfare, school safety, mental health, and eldercare. Previously, Megan practiced law at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem and was a White House Fellow.

Liana Downey is the Executive Director of Liana Downey & Associates, a strategic advisory firm for governments and nonprofits, with offices in New York, and Sydney, Australia. Liana's work is focused on improving service delivery and outcomes for all residents through better performance management and strategic analysis. Previously, Liana led the Government and Nonprofit practices for McKinsey Australia and was an Expert Advisor to the Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Liana holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business (Arjay Miller Scholar), a Bachelor of Science (Math) and a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University, and serves on the New York Advisory Board of Room to Grow.

Jackie Vimo is the Director of Advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella organization for nearly 200 organizations that work with immigrants across New York State. She has held positions at organizations such as Make the Road New York and the New York AIDS Coalition and has been board chair of the Commission on the Public’s Health System and the New York Peer AIDS Education Coalition and a board member of the North Star Fund. Jackie also teaches in the Political Science departments at the City College of New York and the New School University. She has a BA from Barnard College an a MA in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and is currently Ph.D candidate in the Political Science Department at the New School for Social Research.

Chung-Wha Hong is the Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella advocacy organization made up of over 200 groups throughout the state that work with immigrant and refugee communities. Prior to joining the NYIC staff in 2001, she worked for a range of non-profits including the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), Committee of Interns and Residents and Washington, DC-based Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO. She received her degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Cecilia Estolano is the co-founder of ELP Advisors LLC. She has served as both the Chief Executive Officer of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles and the Chief Strategist of State and Local Initiatives for Green for All. Ms. Estolano was also the Deputy Chair of the Environmental Protection Agency Review Team, Energy and Environment Group for the Obama Presidential Transition Team and is currently a member of Senator Barbara Boxer's Judicial Advisory Committee. Ms. Estolano is a graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law, holds a Masters in Urban Planning from UCLA, and has taught courses in urban planning, land use law and sustainable economic development at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Josh Wallack leads the Early Childhood Division for the Children's Aid Society, working to ensure that children who move through Children’s Aid’s 0-5 programming are prepared to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. Prior to that, he served as Chief Operating Officer for the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), where his projects included the Applied Sciences NYC initiative, and the development of Hunter’s Point South, New York City’s largest affordable housing development since the 1970s.

Gail B. Nayowith joined SCO Family of Services as Executive Director in February 2011, taking charge of a 100-year-old human services organization committed to delivering life-changing results for 60,000 vulnerable New Yorkers every year. Prior to joining SCO, Nayowith served as founding Executive Director of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, and for 15 years as Executive Director of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York. Nayowith is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Social Work and served for many years as adjunct faculty at CUSSW, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy New School for Social Research and Hunter College Public Service Scholar Program.

A native of the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York, Richard R. Buery, Jr. is the first black leader and 10th President and Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Aid Society, an independent, nonprofit organization serving New York’s neediest children and their families. Mr. Buery previously co-founded three nonprofit organizations: Groundwork, Inc., a Brooklyn organization serving children and families in public housing developments; iMentor, a New York City mentoring program to empower students from low-income communities to graduate from high school and succeed in college; and Mission Hill Summer Program, a Boston-based enrichment program for families to find affordable, innovative childcare. A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School and the recipient of awards from the National Council of Negro Women and the United Negro College Fund, Mr. Buery has been named one of Ebony magazine’s “Thirty Leaders of the Future under Thirty”(2000) and one of Crain’s New York Business’ “40 Leaders of the Future under 40” (2009).

Caron Atlas has worked for more than thirty years to support and stimulate arts and culture as an integral part of social justice. She currently directs the Arts & Democracy Project, co-directs NOCD-NY, the Naturally Occurring Cultural District Working Group, and teaches at Pratt Institute. Previously she directed the American Festival Project, worked for Appalshop, and consulted with a wide range of organizations, networks, and foundations including National Voice, Network of Ensemble Theaters, Animating Democracy, Cultural Blueprint for New York City, Urban Institute, and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations.