Urban Institute

Array

Carol Thompson Cole is managing partner of Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), a philanthropic investment organization that helps great leaders build strong, high-performing nonprofit institutions. At VPP, Cole is responsible for managing the VPP portfolio of investment partners, the investment process, and the in-house professionals that comprise the VPP Investment Team. Cole brings to VPP over twenty years of management experience in the public and private sectors, as well as a strong history of leadership in the National Capital Region's nonprofit community and local government. She is Vice President, Project Planning for the Federal City Council; and serves on the Leadership Council of Brookings Greater Washington Research Center; the Greater Washington Advisory Board of SunTrust; the Board of Trustees of Wesley Theological Seminary and the Summit Fund; and is a Lifetime Trustee of the Urban Institute. Her past board roles include serving as founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the DC Agenda Support Corporation, and as a Trustee of Smith College and Trinity College. Cole is Advisor to Curtex Construction/The Curtex Group, a company that provides services in the areas of management consulting, organizational development, government relations, and community affairs to faith based organizations and community development corporations. The practice has also advised corporate CEOs on diversity as a business imperative. She served as Special Advisor to President Clinton on the District of Columbia and Executive Director of the DC Inter-Agency Task Force, Executive Office of the President, where she was "point person" to the President on the District. In this position, she played a key role in developing ways the federal government could assist Washington, DC achieve and sustain financial stability, reliable services, and economic growth. She worked closely with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and other senior Administration officials. Prior to serving in the Clinton administration, Cole was the Vice President for Government and Environmental Affairs at RJR Nabisco, where she developed a corporate-wide environmental program that ensured that all business activities were carried out in an environmentally responsible manner and in compliance with federal, state, and local standards; served as corporate spokesperson on environmental issues; and functioned as a Washington representative monitoring public policy issues. She spent twelve years in the government of the District of Columbia holding major management and staff positions, most notably as the first woman (and, at the time, the youngest person) to be appointed City Administrator. She also served as Deputy Mayor for Operations, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Chief of Staff, Executive Office of the Mayor, Director, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Acting Director, Department of Licenses, Investigations, and Inspections, Special Assistant to the City Administrator for Regulatory Affairs, Special Assistant to the Director, Department of Housing and Community Development, and State Historic Preservation Officer.

Dan Goldhaber (Ph.D., Cornell University) is a research associate professor in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington and an affiliated scholar of the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center. He also served as an elected member of the Alexandria City School Board from 1997-2002. Goldhaber's research focuses on issues of educational productivity and reform at the K-12 level and the relationship between teacher labor markets and teacher quality. Topics of published work in these areas include studies of the effects of teacher qualifications and quality on student achievement, the impact of teacher pay structure on the teacher labor market, the relative efficiency of public and private schools, and policy analyses of accountability systems and market competition (vouchers) on K-12 schooling. His work has appeared in Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Urban Economics, Economics of Education Review, Journal of Education Finance, Education Economics, Education Matters/Next, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Education Researcher, and Phi Delta Kappan. Goldhaber's current research addresses the effects of the Opportunity Scholarship ("voucher") Program in Florida on schools, teachers, and students; the implementation and impact of various comprehensive school reform models; teacher labor markets and the role that teacher pay structure plays in teacher recruitment and retention; and the effects of National Board Certification.

Brazzell, Diana is a Research Associate in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Ms. Brazzell is involved in several research projects on topics including prisoner reentry, local jails, faith-based programming, and justice mapping. She graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in public policy.

Elaine Sorensen is a Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute, where she has worked for 17 years. Her current research focuses on low-income families and child support policy. Before that, she examined women's employment and comparable worth policies. Sorensen has published extensively on these issues and is routinely called upon to provide expert advice to policy makers, administrators, and the public. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Sorensen received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1983. Prior to her election to the Policy Council, most of her professional service work has focused on integrating research into the programs and activities of the National Child Support Enforcement Association.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics and Middle Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University. He has worked for over four years as a Research Assistant, first for several professors at Brigham Young, and most recently at the Urban Institute. He joined J-PAL in 2008 and assists with analysis of data from randomized evaluations.

Kim Rueben is a senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution and is a member of the Strategic Planning Group. She is an expert on education policy and state and local and education finance, state and local government budget decisions and the economics of education. She will collaborate on studies across the center and will also work on supplementary projects. Dr. Rueben is a public finance economist and is an expert on California's education system. She was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) and is now an adjunct fellow. She has co-authored projects examining both the distribution of teachers and resources across California's schools and studied teacher labor markets in California. Dr. Rueben has also been a visiting scholar at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank (2002-2003) and an adjunct professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley (1998-1999) and Georgetown Public Policy Institute (2006-2007) . She is currently serving on the executive board of the American Education Finance Association. She received her Ph.D. from M.I.T in economics.

Nancy is a Senior Consultant with Signature Resources and a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. She is especially interested in service coordination and workforce issues. Recently completed policy studies include a paper on skills shortages in nursing; a study of advancement opportunities for low-wage workers in the health care, child care, and hospitality industries; a study of the coordination between welfare and workforce development systems; and a paper on the privatization of social services. Ms. Pindus conducted a three-year evaluation of the Health Passport demonstration project for the Western Governors' Association. Health Passport uses "smart card" technology to facilitate coordination, information sharing, and client empowerment in health and social services programs for pregnant women and children. Ms. Pindus regularly serves as a grant reviewer for the Health Resources and Service Administration, Bureau of Primary Care, and has reviewed grant applications for Community Health Center expansions, Expanded Medical Capacity, and the Health Care Access Program.

From 1983 to 1987, Dr. Penner was the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. Dr. Penner also worked as a Senior Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Chief Economist of the Office of Management and Budget. In the private sector, he served as a Managing Director of the Barents Group and directed fiscal research programs at the Urban Institute and at the American Enterprise Institute. Currently, he is a Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute.

Warren E. Buffett, who has been concerned about the threats from weapons of mass destruction for four decades, serves as an Advisor to NTI's Board of Directors. Mr. Buffett is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a holding company owning subsidiaries engaged in a number of diverse business activities and controlled by him since 1965. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s business activities include the underwriting of property and casualty insurance and a wide variety of manufacturing, retailing and service companies. Mr. Buffett started out as an investment salesman and securities analyst, and early in his career he created his own investment partnership. Mr. Buffett also serves as a Director of The Washington Post Company and is a life trustee of Grinnell College and The Urban Institute. Mr. Buffett attended the Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC, the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania and in 1950 received his B.S. from the University of Nebraska. He earned his M.S. in Economics from Columbia University in 1951.

Director of the Urban Institute at UNC-Charlotte. Former Executive Director of LandTrust for Central NC. Advanced training in land use planning and law.

Sheila Zedlewski is the Director of the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute. The center studies how government policies and individual behavior affect people's economic well-being throughout their lives, from balancing child-rearing with work to preparing for retirement. Her own research has spanned issues across the life cycle with a particular focus on how government income security and health programs affect low-income, vulnerable populations. Currently Zedlewski is studying participation in work support programs, state welfare policies affecting hard-to-employ populations, and productive engagement at older ages. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Berkeley.