OUR TEAM
Rebecca Yae | Director
Rebecca Yae is Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn. Her research focuses on emergency rental assistance, housing policy, racial equity, and alternative housing models and her work has been published in Housing Policy Debate. Most recently, as a Senior Research Analyst at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), Rebecca led a team of researchers studying emergency rental assistance (ERA), including by creating the only comprehensive national database of ERA program features and spending. Her graduate capstone project, Self-Management Law, Now! Fostering Community-Owned, Permanently Affordable and Sustainable Housing in Brazil, supported social movements in Brazil in advocating for and enhancing a national legal framework for self-managed housing and collective property. The project won the 2021 Student Project Award from the American Planning Association. Prior to her housing-related work, Rebecca supported communities in identifying and addressing significant community health needs and evaluating health-related initiatives using qualitative and quantitative data.
 
Rebecca holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.
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. Katie was also Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME) based in Rutgers, Newark. Her dissertation, FHA and the Dual Mortgage Delivery System in Philadelphia, was awarded the Association for Public Policy and Management's (APPAM) prestigious PhD Dissertation Award in 2022. 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. 
Matt Fowle, PhD | Postdoctoral Fellow
Matt Fowle is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Housing Initiative at Penn. His research investigates the role of structural racism in creating housing insecurity among households of color, the institutional drivers of mortality among people experiencing homelessness, and the policies to dismantle generational poverty and homelessness. Matt's dissertation investigated the causes, reproduction, and consequences of racial inequality in homelessness. He brings insights from public health, urban policy, and sociology to his work and conducts mixed methods research using innovative administrative, interview, and survey data. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked in philanthropy, local government, and a nonprofit human rights organization. Matt is a co-founder of HomelessDeathsCount.org, a community research project to collect nationwide data on mortality among people experiencing homelessness. He received his PhD in Public Policy and Management from the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington. He also holds degrees in Politics and Law from the University of Chester and Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation from the University of Oxford.
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 | Senior Research Analyst
Cypress Marrs is a Senior Research Analyst at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). Cypress holds a MS in social policy with a certificate in data analytics 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). In 2022, Anna earned 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.
Chi-Hyun Kim | Housing Research Analyst
Chi-Hyun Kim is a Research Analyst at the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). He received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Chicago. Previously, he served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, before continuing as a data analyst at the same organization. His research interests lie in eviction prevention and other policies to foster housing stability, as well as broader efforts to ensure sustainable and equitable cities for all.
Vincent J. Reina, PhD | Faculty Director
*currently on leave
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
Jared Jackson
Jared Jackson is a Master of City Planning student at the University of Pennsylvania and a Moelis Fellow pursuing a concentration in Public and Private Development. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Jared graduated Summa Cum Laude from the largest HBCU in the nation, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. As an intern with RK&K Engineers, he gained experience in transportation planning, research design, and field inspection. As an intern at the Baltimore County Department of Panning, he evaluated site plans and created criteria for the siting of low-income housing developments. Jared’s mission is to develop communities in need that have experienced historical economic neglect, without displacing current members of those neighborhoods.
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.