OUR TEAM
Claudia F. Aiken, MCP | Director
Claudia Aiken is Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). Her research focuses on housing policy in the context of declining federal resources; racial and socioeconomic inequity; and neighborhood change. She has worked as a consultant in multiple municipal housing planning processes and has completed housing studies using both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Aiken has published in the Urban Affairs Review, Russell Sage Foundation's RSF: Journal of the Social Sciences, and Cityscape, and is Managing Editor of the journal Housing Policy Debate.

​Claudia holds a Master of Science in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and a Bachelor of Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia. She has also studied urban planning in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lyon, France. Her graduate work includes a thesis on regional collaboration to promote housing affordability and “Dealing with Gentrification,” a project that examines the links between neighborhood change and housing insecurity.
Katharine L. Nelson, PhD | Director of Research
Katie Nelson is Director of Research at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). Her work focuses on racial equity in housing, housing finance and community development. Her primary research interests include FHA-insured mortgages and racial divides in mortgage markets, housing finance and extractive practices in neighborhoods of color, the growth of institutional investors and single-family residential real estate, and gentrification and public school funding. Katie has significant experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and a passion for spatial-analytical methodologies. Her work has been published in Housing Policy Debate, the Journal of Urban Affairs, and the Journal of Education Policy. 

​Katie received her doctorate at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. She was also Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) based in Rutgers, Newark. Prior to her doctoral work, Katie worked at the Reinvestment Fund, a community development finance institution based in Philadelphia. She worked on a small close-knit team developing PolicyMap, a national web-based data and mapping application now widely used by government, universities, nonprofits, and policy organizations. 
Jamaal Green, PhD | Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Green is a Provost Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses is at the intersection of housing, land-use, and economic development policy and he is particularly interested in the role that planning can play in mitigating social and political inequality. Dr. Green was previously a Research Analyst at the State of Oregon's Department of Human Services' Research and Analytics Division, and an National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow. He received his Ph.D., from the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at the Portland State University.
Cypress Marrs | Housing Research Analyst
Cypress Marrs is a Research Analyst at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). She has studied social policy at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice and holds a BA from the Division of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
Anna Duan | Housing Research Analyst
Anna Duan is a Research Analyst at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). She is a candidate for a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include affordable housing, transportation equity, and community land trusts. Anna is enthusiastic about the application of spatial analytics to research. Outside of Penn, she competes in powerlifting.
Moriah Smith | Housing Research Analyst
Moriah Smith is a Research Analyst at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). She holds both a Bachelors and Masters in urban planning from the illustrious Alabama A&M University. As an Association of Collegiate School of Planning (ACSP) fellow, Smith completed a personal research project called "The Love Mo Project." The mission of the project is to educate and raise awareness about, and to promote social justice and sustainability in the lives of people who are homeless. Smith has worked in the nonprofit sector to assist the homeless and people with low incomes with obtaining secure housing. She will begin a doctoral program in Public and Urban Affairs at the University of Louisville in Fall 2022. ​
Vincent J. Reina, PhD | Faculty Director
Dr. Reina is an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. He is currently on leave to serve as Senior Policy Advisor for Housing and Urban Policy in the White House Domestic Policy Council. Dr. Reina's research focuses on urban economics, low-income housing policy, household mobility,  neighborhood change, and community and economic development. His work has been published in various academic journals such as Urban Studies and the Journal of Housing Economics, and he is the Editor in Chief of Housing Policy Debate. Dr. Reina was the 2019-2020 Dean’s Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Nursing. He was the recipient of the 2019 Rising Scholar Award by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, a Visiting School at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia from 2018-2020, a 2018 Lincoln Institute for Land Policy Scholar, the recipient of the 2016 Best Dissertation in Public Policy and Management award from the Association of Public Policy and Management, and he is currently a Stoneleigh Foundation Fellow.  Dr. Reina is a Research Affiliate at the NYU Furman Center, where he was previously the Herbert Z. Gold Housing Research Fellow from 2009-2012.

Dr. Reina began his career as a Community Planning and Development Representative for the U.S. Department of Housing and Development and was then a project manager in its Division of Multifamily Housing. He also worked as a senior program officer at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, where he underwrote financing for affordable housing developments across the country, and completed a Coro fellowship.

HIP FELLOWS
Yihan Zhang
Yihan Zhang is a Master of City Planning student at the University of Pennsylvania, concentrating in Public and Private Development. Her research interest lies in understanding the public and private forces behind urban development, especially in housing and redevelopment projects. Yihan’s previous work experience includes housing policy research, urban design, market analysis and software programing for sustainability analysis. At HIP, Yihan is supporting our evaluations of COVID-19 emergency rental assistance programs across the country.
Chris Michael
Chris Michael is a Master of City Planning student concentration in Housing, Community and Economic Development. Chris' research interests include urban informality, informal housing settlements and the implications of urban densification in Asian cities. At HIP, Chris is supporting the development of a comprehensive housing report and dashboard for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. In her free time, you can find her sketching, watching anime, and waxing poetic about Christopher Nolan movies.  ​
Julia Sands
Julia Sands is a senior Written Arts Major at Bard College. She has a passion for writing, and is enthusiastic about housing justice. At HIP, Julia works to ensure that cutting-edge research in the housing field reaches a wider audience of practitioners, policymakers, and advocates.
Whether you're a policymaker, researcher, journalist, student, funder, or just someone who cares about housing - we would love to hear from you. Email us at housinginitiative@design.upenn.edu.