Visiting scholars are selected from the community development and education fields to enrich the New York Fed’s outreach and education programs.
Eric Belsky: Community Development Ecosystem Expert
Eric Belsky, Ph.D., previously served at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2014 to 2025. He advised the Board of Governors on consumer protection and community reinvestment and provided research and analysis on the economic condition of low- and moderate-income households and communities. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, he worked at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, Price Waterhouse, Fannie Mae, and National Association of Homebuilders, where he was a Senior Economist.
Belsky has co-edited six books and authored numerous articles and book chapters, served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Housing Research and Housing Policy Debate, and served on several nonprofit and corporate boards and advisory groups. Belsky has extensive experience conducting research on housing markets, housing finance, and housing policy, including as Research Director of the Millennial Housing Commission. He holds a Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. from Clark University.
Areas of Interest: Housing and AI
Area of Engagement/Research: To support and understand the potential utility of machine learning and Gen AI to drive efficiencies and effectiveness in community economic development and economic mobility.
Tenure: Through December 2026
Hanaa A. Hamdi: Public Health Expert
Hanaa A. Hamdi, Ph.D., is a systems scientist whose work explored how food economic development can improve population health. Hamdi examines how food systems, when guided by community governance and cross-sector coordination, shape economic opportunity, food access, and long-term health outcomes.
Hamdi focuses on place-based approaches that align food enterprises, institutions, and public systems to address structural gaps in food markets. She is particularly interested in how governance structures influence decision-making, accountability, and the sustainability of collaborative efforts.
Hamdi brings a translational lens that connects research, policy, and practice. She develops frameworks and shared measures to assess how food system investments affect access to healthy foods and community wellbeing. She contributes to advancing evidence-informed, community-driven strategies for food economic development and population health.
Hamdi holds a joint PhD in Public Health and Environmental Design from Rutgers University and New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Areas of Interest: Food Systems and Public Health
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine how coordination across food production, distribution, and institutional procurement can improve market function and support healthier communities.
Tenure: Through December 2026
Related Publications:
Hamdi, H. Access to Fresh, Affordable Food: A Basic Feature of Healthy Communities
The Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Doctor
Franck, J; Hamdi, H: Food Justice by R. Gottlieb and A. Joshi. Environmental Ethics (2013) 35 (1);127-138
Tyler Norris: Community Development Expert
Tyler Norris, M.Div., is co-founder and director of CEO Alliance for Mental Health. He is a social entrepreneur and trusted advisor to philanthropies, partnerships and government agencies working to improve the well-being of people and place. For over four decades, he has shaped health and development initiatives in communities in the U.S. and around the world and built over a dozen business and social ventures.
Norris is a founding board member of Mindful Philanthropy; and a board member of the National Academies of Sciences' Forum for Child Well Being, and the Global Flourishing Study. He was founding CEO of Well Being Trust, an impact philanthropy with a mission to advance the mental, social, and spiritual health of the nation. Previously, Norris led Total Health at Kaiser Permanente.
Norris is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Leadership Program, earned a Master of Divinity from Naropa University, and has a bachelor's in World Political Economy from Colorado College.
Areas of Interest: Creating the missing market for health by investing in flourishing across the youth developmental life course.
Area of Engagement/Research: Exploring strategies for expanding economic opportunities and increasing population-level health and well-being for families and rising generations of youth.
Tenure: Through December 2026
David Sand: Impact Investment Expert
David Sand, is co-chief impact strategist at Community Capital Management. Sand leads the advancement of the firm’s impact analysis, including the development of metrics, outcomes, and reporting.
Sand has over 40 years of investment management experience and is a trailblazer in the impact investing field. In 1994, he co-founded Access Capital Strategies, serving as its president and chief investment officer until 2010. There, he pioneered the development of market-rate, fixed income impact investments tailored for institutional investors. Sand serves as board secretary for the Adirondack Foundation, loan committee co-chair for the New York Advisory Board for Enterprise Community Partners, and as a board member for AERIS®, the information service for community investors.
Sand received his bachelor’s in American History from Princeton University and an M.P.A from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He holds FINRA licenses: Series 7 and 63.
Areas of Interest: Impact Investing
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine the flow of capital into communities from idea generation to impactful investments.
Tenure: Through April 2026
Jill Sonke: Arts and Public Health Expert
Jill Sonke, Ph.D., is a U.S. cultural policy fellow with Stanford Arts at Stanford University; co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab in partnership with University College London; and director of research initiatives and a research professor in the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida.
Sonke served from 2021-2025 as director of national research and impact for the One Nation/One Project initiative. She currently serves on the steering committee and as an affiliated researcher in the World Health Organization’s Jameel Arts & Health Lab, and as an editorial board member for Health Promotion Practice journal.
With 30-plus years of leadership in the field of arts in health and a Ph.D. in arts in public health from Ulster University in Northern Ireland, Sonke is active in research and policy advocacy nationally and internationally. She is a dancer, amateur musician, cultural strategist, and a mixed methods researcher with over 100 publications. She is the recipient of numerous awards and over 350 grants for her programs and research.
Areas of Interest: Arts and Public Health
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine opportunities for community health policies and funding streams that support evidence-based arts and cultural strategies in communities and promote well-being.
Tenure: Through February 2027
Previous Visiting Scholars
See our previous visiting scholars since the inception of the program in 2020.
Xavier de Souza Briggs
Xavier de Souza Briggs: Distinguished Visiting Professor at New York University and Public Policy Expert
Xavier de Souza Briggs is a distinguished visiting professor, with a joint appointment at the Wagner School, the Business and Society Program at the Stern School of Business, and the Department of Sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences. He is an award-winning educator and researcher as well as an experienced manager in philanthropy and government.
Areas of Interest: racial equity, philanthropy, housing affordability and equitable development; international development and impact investing
Tenure: January 2021
Audrey Choi
Audrey Choi: Sustainable Finance Expert
Audrey Choi is a pioneer in the fields of corporate sustainability and sustainable finance. Her career has spanned the highest levels of finance, government and journalism, as a C-suite officer at Morgan Stanley, chief of staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and as bureau chief and foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
Choi was the first Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) on Wall Street. A trailblazer for sustainable investing, she proposed and founded the Morgan Stanley Global Sustainable Finance Group in 2009 and the Institute for Sustainable Investing in 2013. As CSO, she spearheaded the firm's groundbreaking Plastic Waste Resolution and the Sustainable Solutions Collaborative to scale breakthrough innovations to drive systemic change.
Choi also founded the firm's Community Development Finance Group in 2009 and led it for 10 years, investing more than $20 billion to strengthen low-income communities. Through targeted strategic partnerships with philanthropy and public policy, these investments were able to help catalyze the creation of more than 100,000 units of quality affordable housing integrated with access to affordable health care, equitable transit, and fresh and healthy food.
Choi graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Business School. She was a White House Fellow, Fulbright Scholar and David Rockefeller Fellow.
Areas of Interest: Innovative and Sustainable Financing.
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine strategies that can provide insight and best practices for systems change and scaling solutions in LMI communities.
Tenure: Through December 2025
Nathaniel Counts
Nathaniel Counts: Mental Health America (Alexandria, VA) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, NY)
Nathaniel Counts serves as the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health Innovation for Mental Health America (MHA) and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. At MHA, Nathaniel leads policy research and advocacy centered around addressing social and economic determinants of behavioral health, prevention and population-health strategies, and impacts of consumer technologies. Nathaniel's research has focused on aligning incentives to finance effective prevention and intervention in behavioral health, including publications in journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, Lancet Psychiatry, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Areas of Interest: Designing markets for long-term health, community wealth building and health equity, value-based payment and community health promotion
Working with the NY Fed: conducting research on regulatory options for establishing quasi-markets that advance community-level long-term healthy development.
Tenure:
January 31, 2023
Related Publications:
Short-term and Long-term Returns for States Implementing Pediatric Alternative Payment Model
Stephen DeBerry
Stephen DeBerry: Impact Investing Expert
Stephen DeBerry uses culture and the economy to build a more just and joyful society. He is the Founder of BRONZE, a leading US venture capital fund that invests to move social, economic, and environmental disparity to prosperity.
Before becoming an investor, Stephen was a champion athlete. He is a former USA national track and field champion (400 meter hurdles) and a member of the first African-American mountaineering team to ascend Denali, the highest mountain in North America.
Stephen has served the broader community through local grassroots organizations to boards of multibillion dollar foundations and corporations. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with highest honors from UCLA as well as Master’s in Social Anthropology and MBA degrees from The University of Oxford. Stephen is a British Marshall Scholar and Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and has been recognized for his community engagement by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Areas of Interest: Innovative Financing
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine strategies that can accelerate financial innovations and support economic prosperity in communities.
Tenure: Through December 2025
Penelope Douglas
Penelope Douglas: Founding Partner of CultureBank
See video of Penelope Douglas to learn more about her focus in arts, culture and community development
Penelope Douglas is a founding partner of CultureBank. She has spent the past twenty-five years as a social entrepreneur, pioneer in community development investment, cofounder and CEO of Pacific Community Ventures, and senior executive and board chair of MissionHub and SOCAP.
Areas of Interest: arts & culture, impact investing and equitable growth
Tenure: December 2020
Jody Hoff
Jody Hoff: Economic Education Expert
Jody Hoff is an accomplished educational leader specializing in program development and evaluation, with an emphasis on learning opportunities that engage the imagination and curiosity of students. Jody's research focuses on understanding the impacts of educational interventions on the knowledge and attitudes of students and teachers, including publications in The American Economist, Contemporary Economic Policy, and the Journal of Economic Education. Jody recently joined Boise State University's Institute for Inclusive and Transformational Scholarship, working with undergraduate researchers and faculty mentors. She previously served in leadership roles as the Officer and Director and of Economic Education at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Executive Director of the Idaho Council on Economic Education, and began her career as a high school economics and math teacher. Jody holds a B.S. in Economics from the University of Idaho, a Master in Business Administration from Boise State University, and a Ph.D. in Research Psychology from Walden University.
Areas of Interest: Understanding barriers that limit student engagement and achievement, improving educational experiences through student-centered design, exploring teacher attitudes and beliefs about teaching
Working with the NY Fed: Conduct qualitative research with staff and education stakeholders to inform department strategies, improve program offerings, and increase participation by under-served groups.
Tenure: December 2022
Related Publications:
Game-based learning
;
Teacher training effects
;
Alternative assessments
;
Teaching and learning disconnects
Andrea Levere
Andrea Levere: Asset-Building and Financial Sustainability Expert
Andrea Levere is the founder and CEO of Capitalize Good and a Social Enterprise Fellow at the Yale School of Management. In this role, Andrea drafted the Blueprint for Enterprise Capital to scale the delivery of “philanthropic equity” for nonprofits and social ventures to build financial strength and resilience and reduce the racial wealth gap in the nonprofit sector. She is working with the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Citi Foundation, California Wellness Foundation, William Julius Wilson Institute, and other partners to advance the practice of Enterprise Capital within philanthropy and the social sector.
She is President Emerita of Prosperity Now, an organization that designs and operates national initiatives to integrate financial capability services into systems serving low-income people, build assets and savings, close the racial wealth divide and advance research and policies to expand economy mobility for all. Under her leadership, Prosperity Now scaled matched savings accounts for adults and children with over 5 million children now benefiting from a Child Savings Account.
Areas of Interest: Advancing Enterprise Capital as a Philanthropic Asset Class
Area of Engagement/Research: To collect and examine financial data and social impacts generated through the investment of enterprise capital into nonprofits and social enterprises to demonstrate how this type of funding advances their missions and financial sustainability and identify partners who can assist building more robust data systems.
Tenure: Through December 2025
Related Publications:
The Blueprint for Enterprise Capital
;
Making the Case for Enterprise Capital: One Nonprofit’s Path to Financial Sustainability and Increased Impact
;
If You’re Serious about Funding Real Change, You Need to Change the Way Your Fund (Yes, Again)
.
Michael Loftin
Michael Loftin: CEO of Homewise, Inc.
Mike Loftin has served as the CEO of Homewise, Inc., since 1992. He leads a staff of 100 mission-driven, talented professionals with expertise from diverse fields that include financial coaching and education, mortgage lending and loan servicing, real estate sales, real estate development, community and economic development, marketing, fundraising, financial management, and policy advancement.
Areas of Interest: household finance management, mortgage lending and loan servicing, community development
Working with the NY Fed: Work to shift the current thinking from seeing homeownership as a nice outcome that naturally occurs in healthy communities to an understanding that smart homeownership promotion is an important means to improving the wellbeing of low-income families and disinvested neighborhoods.
Tenure: December 2021
Related Publications:
An Economy That Works for All: Fostering Low-Income Homeownership
;
Strengthening Households and Neighborhoods by Supportng a Healthy Housing Spectrum
Clara Miller
Clara Miller: Impact Investing and Sustainable Financing Expert
Clara Miller is President Emerita of the F.B. Heron Foundation and led the foundation in its goal of aligning 100 percent of an endowed foundation’s assets with its mission. Her work at the Heron Foundation was featured in a 2018 case study by Stanford Graduate School of Business, “The Heron Foundation: 100 Percent for Mission and Beyond.” Ms. Miller is a national leader in enterprise finance for the social sector, with contributions in diverse sectors, including community development, impact investing, grant making and sustainability accounting. Prior to her role at the F.B. Heron Foundation, she was Founder and President/CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund.
Ms. Miller previously worked at the New York Community Trust, the Southern Tier Central Planning and Development Board in Corning, NY and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. She received a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from the University of New Hampshire in 1972, a Master’s in Regional Planning from Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1977 and completed Columbia Graduate School of Business’ Institute for Nonprofit Management in 1984.
Areas of Interest: Exploring the Tenets of Community Finance
Area of Engagement/Research: To bridge community development finance and philanthropy, across sectors, businesses and investments, and further explore the intersections of community finance in the not-for-profit and for-profit sectors.
Tenure: Through December 2025
Related Publications:
Economic Justice is Accounting Justice;
It’s A False Dichotomy;
A Revolution of Capital;
Big League: Transforming the Capital Markets with Impact Rigor and Disclosure;
Arriving at 100 Percent for Mission: Now What?;
Hidden in Plain Sight: Understanding Capital Structure;
The Looking-Glass World of Nonprofit Money: Managing in For-Profits’ Shadow Universe
Miguel A. Soto-Class
Miguel A. Soto-Class: President & Founder
Miguel A. Soto-Class founded the Center for a New Economy (CNE) in 1998, and since then has steered CNE into becoming one of the most credible and influential voices in Puerto Rico. Beginning in 2014, CNE has been recognized yearly as one of the Top Think-Tanks to Watch by the Global Think Tank Report of the University of Pennsylvania.
With offices in San Juan, Washington, D.C. and Madrid, CNE is Puerto Rico's first think tank, and has evolved into a powerful nonpartisan advocate on behalf of the island in policy circles as well as an important participant of diaspora and Latino groups in the U.S. mainland.
CNE''s policy papers are regularly sought-out by officials in the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the White House, intent on receiving balanced expertise and policy counsel on Puerto Rico and finding bipartisan options to the challenges faced by the island. CNE''s reports and analyses are also regularly covered by media from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and are cited by numerous academic and policy publications.
Mike was an editor of The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth, which was published by the Brookings Institution in 2006 and selected that same year as a Notable Book by the American Library Association. He has been a columnist for El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico''s largest circulation daily, since 2003, and was the host of a weekly news radio program on economics at Radio Universidad in the University of Puerto Rico for several years.
Mike served as an Advisory Board member of the Community Innovator's Lab at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts; as a Board member of Endeavor Puerto Rico, a non-profit with an international reach committed to supporting high-impact entrepreneurs; as a Trustee of the University Press of the University of Puerto Rico; as the Founding Chairman of Espacios Abiertos, an organization dedicated to growing civic capacity and promoting transparency in Puerto Rico; a member of the YouthSave Advisory Board at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.; and as Co-Chair of ReImagina, the Advisory Commission for a Resilient Puerto Rico. In 2008, he was selected as an Aspen Institute Ideas Fellow.
He currently serves as Yale Alumni Schools Director for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and as the Puerto Rico Delegate to the Yale Alumni Association, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of the Baldwin School of Puerto Rico, and an Emeritus Member of the Advisory Council for the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico.
Mike has a B.A. from Yale University and a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University
Areas of Interest: Economic development, energy policy, disaster recovery, fiscal policy, and social policy
Working with the NY Fed: To partner with the Community Development team to jointly execute a series of eents focused on investments in Puerto Rico. He will advise the climate and health teams on future outreach and research opportunities in Puerto Rico.
Tenure: Through April 2023
Related Publications:
The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth;
Economía Ciudadana Podcasts
Maggie Super Church
Maggie Super Church: Community Development and Health Expert
Maggie Super Church is an urban planner, designer, and innovator with more than two decades of experience leading interdisciplinary and cross-sector teams to build healthy, inclusive and thriving neighborhoods and cities. Her expertise includes climate and environmental sustainability, affordable housing, real estate and healthy food financing, and community economic development. Her research is focused on the impact of neighborhood conditions on community health, well-being and economic opportunity. She is a 1994 Truman Scholar and holds a master’s degree in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in Urban Design from the Edinburgh College of Art, and a BA in Architecture from Yale University.
Areas of Interest: Climate finance, community development, impact investing, social determinants of health.
Area of Engagement/Research: To explore and conduct climate and health engagement and research in conjunction with research partners, health insurers, philanthropy and others related to upstream investments in the social drivers of health.
Tenure: Through December 2023
Related Publications:
Investing in Health from the Ground Up: Building a Market for Healthy Neighborhoods
;
Using Data to Address Health Disparities and Drive investment in Healthy Neighborhoods
;
Healthy and Equitable Community Investment
;
Community Change and Resident Needs: Designing a Participatory Action Research Study in Metropolitan Boston
.
Michael Swack
Michael Swack: Community Development Finance Expert
Michael Swack is a professor at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches and directs the Center for Impact Finance. At Carsey, he is working on building scale in the community development finance sector, innovations in community development finance, and sustainable energy financing. He also directs the Financial Innovations Roundtable, an annual gathering, now in its 25th year which brings together finance practitioners from around the country to discuss and develop strategies to grow the field of community development finance. He was the founder and former dean of the School of Community Economic Development (CED) at Southern New Hampshire University.
Michael was the first chairman and served for seventeen years as a board member of the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA), a state-chartered equity fund for community economic development ventures and projects. He is the founding president and a current board member of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund. He was a founding board member of the National Association of Community Development Loan Funds (now the Opportunity Finance Network), a trade association of Community Development Finance Institutions.
Michael received his doctorate degree from Columbia University, his master’s degree from Harvard University, and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Areas of Interest: Community Development Finance.
Area of Engagement/Research: To examine strategies that can provide insight and best practices for implementing CDFI funds.
Tenure: Through December 2025
Selected Related Publications:
A Path to Conventional Equity for CDFIs
Charles Tansey,
Michael Swack
Aligning Investments to Improve Population Health
Michael Swack,
Sarah Boege,
Kevin Barnett
CDFI Industry Analysis: Summary Report
Michael Swack,
Jack Northrup,
Eric Hangen
Capital Markets, CDFIs, and Organizational Credit Risk
Michael Swack,
Charles Tansey,
Vicky Stein,
Michael Tansey
David Dante Troutt
David Dante Troutt: Distinguished Professor of Law & Founding Director, Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity, Rutgers University
David Dante Troutt is Distinguished Professor of Law and Justice John J. Francis Scholar. David Troutt is the founding director of the Rutgers Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). He teaches and writes in four areas of primary interest: the metropolitan dimensions of race, class and legal structure; intellectual property; Torts; and critical legal theory. His major publications (noted below) include books of fiction and non-fiction, scholarly articles and a variety of legal and political commentary on race, law and equality.
Areas of Interest: economic inequality, law and equality, racial equity, and equitable economic development
Tenure: June 2021
Related Publications:
From Equitable Growth to Equitable Recovery (June 8, 2020)
