Outreach & Education’s Visiting Scholars Program

Visiting scholars are selected from the community development and education fields to enrich the New York Fed’s outreach and education programs.

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 September 2024


Hanaa A. Hamdi: Public Health Expert

Hanaa A. Hamdi, Ph.D., is a system entrepreneur working to improve the health of people and communities. With more than two decades of research, practice and policy making, Dr. Hamdi has dedicated her career to advancing health equity among Black, Indigenous and other people of color, with a particular focus on women and children.

Most recently, Dr. Hamdi directed NJ Community Capital’s Health Impact Investment & Partnership Strategies Initiative, where she developed NJCC’s emerging community health investment and development strategies with regional and national health-focused partners, supporting the organization’s holistic approach to neighborhood revitalization. Hanaa is a board member of Children and Nature Network and investment committee member of Potlikker Capital Fund, a charitable loan fund dedicated to investing and advocating for BIPOC farmers.

Hanaa holds a joint Ph.D. in Public Health and Environmental Design from Rutgers University and New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Areas of Interest: Food Systems, Public Health, and Community Development Finance.

Area of Engagement/Research: To examine strategies that can leverage blended financing (bank CRA, healthcare Community Benefit, and anchor strategies) to build economic resilience among BIPOC farmers.

Tenure: Through July 2024

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 a social entrepreneur and trusted advisor to philanthropies and partnerships working to improve the health of people and place. Most recently he served as the founding CEO of Well Being Trust, an impact philanthropy with a mission to advance the mental, social and spiritual health of the nation.

Tyler currently is Board Chair of Naropa University; co-Chair of the CEO Alliance for Mental Health; and a board member for Mindful Philanthropy, and the National Academies of Sciences' Child Well Being Forum.

Over the years he helped start Step Denver; facilitated the opening of the Abraham Path through the heart of the Middle East; and led the Kuhiston Foundation to help establish the national park system and micro-finance in Tajikistan.

Tyler 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. Home is in Ketchum, Idaho and Oakland. California.

Areas of Interest: Health equity, CRA investments, social determinants of health

Working with the New York Fed: To investigate more effective leveraging of bank CRA investing, integrated with healthcare Community Benefit investing and application of anchor approaches, along with other community resources and structures to deliver sufficient dose for measurable impact at a population level.

Tenure: Through June 2024

Related Publications: www.wellbeingtrust.org

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: 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 August 2024

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


Previous Visiting Scholars

See our previous visiting scholars since the inception of the program in 2020.

Xavier de Souza Briggs
Nathaniel Counts
Penelope Douglas
Jody Hoff
Michael Loftin
Miguel A. Soto-Class
David Dante Troutt
About the Visiting Scholars Program

Visiting scholars are university faculty, community development practitioners and researchers, think tank representatives, and/or senior leaders from foundations and nonprofit organizations.

They are selected to advise and collaborate with New York Fed staff on groundbreaking ideas, analytical products and programs. They present at internal seminars and conduct workshops on community development topics. While they provide staff with new research and updates from the community development and education fields, they also benefit from working and exchanging ideas with staff. Selection is on a rolling basis and placements are short-term.

CONTACT US to learn more about the Outreach & Education Visiting Scholars Program.

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