Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy
Collaborative Research | Innovative Approaches | Practical Solutions ▪ A "think and do" tank based at Northeastern University
Recent Research Reports
Life Sciences Innovation as a Catalyst for Economic Development
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2012 Greater Boston Housing Report Card
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Hub and Spoke: Core Transit Congestion and the Future of Transit and Development in Greater Boston
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Recapturing the American Dream: Meeting the Challenges of the
Bay State’s Lost Decade
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Staff
Senior Staff
Research Associates
Student Employees
Distinguished Fellows
Katharine (Kitty) Dukakis | Michael S. Dukakis
Full Biographies
To reach Governor Dukakis, please contact his student assistant
Cory O’Hayer at ohayer.c@gmail.com or (617) 373-4396.
Senior Staff
Founding Director, Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy
Russell B. and Andree B. Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy
Barry Bluestone is the founding Director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and the founding Dean of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Before assuming these posts, Bluestone spent twelve years at the University of Massachusetts at Boston as the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Political Economy and as a Senior Fellow at the University’s John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. He was the Founding Director of UMass Boston’s Ph.D. Program in Public Policy. Before coming to UMass in the Fall of 1986, he taught economics at Boston College for fifteen years and was Director of the University’s Social Welfare Research Institute. Professor Bluestone was raised in Detroit, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan where he received his B.A., M.A. and finally his Ph.D. in economics in 1974.
At the Dukakis Center, Bluestone has led research projects on housing, local economic development, state and local public finance, and the manufacturing sector in Massachusetts. At the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, he has co-chaired the Open Classroom series, a graduate seminar on critical social issues open free to the public each semester. He was also part of the team that developed the school’s Master’s Program in Urban and Regional Policy (MURP).
As a political economist, Bluestone has written widely in the areas of income distribution, business and industrial policy, labor-management relations, higher education finance, and urban and regional economic development. He contributes regularly to academic, as well as popular journals, and is the author of eleven books. In 1982, he published The Deindustrialization of America (co-authored with the late Bennett Harrison) which analyzed the restructuring of American industry and its economic and social impact on workers and communities. A sequel published in 1988, The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America, also co-authored with Harrison, investigated how economic policies have contributed to growing inequality. In earlier books, Bluestone investigated the low-wage labor market, the aircraft industry, and the revolution in the retail trade sector. In 1992, Negotiating the Future: A Labor Perspective on American Business was published. Co-authored with his father, Irving Bluestone, the book traces the history of labor-management relations since World War II and offers the concept of the “Enterprise Compact” as an approach to industrial relations which can boost productivity, improve product quality and innovation, and enhance employment security. Korean, Spanish, and Japanese editions of this book have been published.
In 2000, Bluestone published two new books. The first of these, co-authored again with Harrison and titled Growing Prosperity: The Battle for Growth with Equity in the 21st Century, investigates the prospects for faster economic growth in the U.S. It was published by Houghton Mifflin and the Twentieth Century Fund. The second, The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis, co-authored with Mary Huff Stevenson and published by the Russell Sage Foundation, was the culmination of nearly five years of research on the new Boston economy. It recounts the industrial and demographic revolution in post-World War II Boston and its impact on racial and ethnic attitudes, residential segregation, and the labor market success of whites, blacks, and Latinos.
Bluestone’s latest book published in 2008 and co-authored with Mary Huff Stevenson and Russell Williams is a major textbook entitled The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy. This work, rich in theory and applied policy, was written for an interdisciplinary audience and can be used at either the undergraduate or graduate level.
As part of his work, Bluestone spends a considerable amount of time consulting with trade unions, with industry groups, and with various federal and state government agencies. He was Executive Adviser to the Governor’s Commission on the Future of Mature Industries in Massachusetts and has worked with the economic development departments of various states. He has testified before Congressional committees and lectures regularly before university, labor, community, and business groups. He appears frequently on local and national radio. Bluestone is also a founding member of the Economic Policy Institute, along with Robert Reich, Lester Thurow, Robert Kuttner, Ray Marshall, and Jeff Faux. In 2006, he served on the transition team for Governor Deval Patrick.
He currently serves as a member of the advisory council to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development as well as the Massachusetts Executive Office of Administration and Finance. He served on the Governor’s Economic Development Strategy Council and is now an executive board member of the Governor’s Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative. From 2007-2010, he served as a member of the Community Affairs Research Advisory Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is a past board member of the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) and currently as a board member of the Lyric Stage of Boston.
In his spare time, when he was younger, he used to compete in team triathlons as a bicycle racer — fortunately with a team otherwise comprised of orthopedic surgeons and an internist. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Mary Ellen Colten. Their son Joshua is an undergraduate at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Full Biography | Phone: (617) 373-7870 | Email: b.bluestone@neu.edu
Associate Director of Research
Stephanie Pollack is Associate Director of the Kitty & Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, overseeing the Center’s research agenda as well as conducting her own research projects in the areas of transportation policy, transit-oriented development, sustainability and equitable development. Pollack is also on the core faculty for the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, teaching courses to graduate students in the Law, Policy and Society program and teaching and supervising internships for the Master of Urban and Regional Policy program. Her courses include Strategizing Public Policy, Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning, Housing Policy and Transportation Policy.
Pollack is active in public policy issues affecting transportation, sustainable development and the environment in Massachusetts. She co-chaired Governor Deval Patrick’s 2006 transition working group on transportation and served on Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Climate Action Leadership Committee in 2009-2010. She currently serves on the boards of Boston Society of Architects, Charles River Watershed Association, Health Resources in Action and MoveMass.
Before coming to Northeastern in 2004, Pollack was a senior executive and attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, New England’s leading environmental advocacy organization. During her two-decade career at CLF, Pollack worked on issues including transportation and transit policy, smart growth and sustainable development and childhood lead poisoning. From 2004 through 2010 she was also a partner in the strategic environmental consulting firm BlueWave Strategies LLC, where she advised clients on smart growth, transit-oriented development and other “green” real estate projects.
Pollack received both a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BS in Public Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Phone: (617) 373-8341 | Email: s.pollack@neu.edu
Senior Research Assistant
Focus Areas: Non-Profit Performance and Capacity Building, Evaluation & Outcomes Measurement
Laurie Dopkins is Senior Research Associate at the Dukakis Center and Director of Academic Programs for the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. Immediately prior to moving to Boston in 2008, Laurie was Associate Research Professor at George Mason University where she taught evaluation research methods and led community-based action research projects involving collaborations between nonprofit organizations, government agencies, businesses, private foundations, and multiple units within the university.
Before joining the faculty at Mason, Dopkins had her own consulting firm in Atlanta where she worked with public sector agencies, foundations, and nongovernmental organizations on policy research and program evaluation in a wide range of areas including children and youth, community and economic development, maternal and child health, education, and immigration. Dopkins has broad experience in the management, analysis and evaluation of policies and programs, including the development of accountability and outcomes monitoring systems. She has specialized in developing collaborative evaluation techniques that enhance evaluation capacity and utilization among diverse stakeholder groups, including policymakers and program managers, service providers and clients, community leaders and advocates.
Dopkins has published dozens of evaluation and research reports for foundations, government organizations, nonprofit agencies, and community groups. Her specific areas of interest in the field of evaluation are social indicators, organizational learning, program theory and logic models, evaluation capacity building, evidence based policy and practice, and the translation of knowledge to action. Dopkins received her Ph.D in Sociology from Rutgers University in 1984. She lives in Brookline with her husband, Steve Vallas, and has two grown daughters, Rebecca and Kaitlin.
Phone: (617) 373-2889 | Email:l.dopkins@neu.edu
Senior Associate
Executive Director, World Class Cities Partnership
Michael is the Executive Director of the World Class Cities Partnership, headquartered at Northeastern University. As Executive Director, Michael establishes and develops relationships with municipal governments and universities around the world, creating a global network of partner cities dedicated to implementing public policy to address shared challenges facing 21st century cities. Michael’s career in public service has spanned from serving two United States Presidents as Special Assistant for White House Operations to serving the former Prime Minister of Ireland as a policy research analyst and most recently serving as Director of Development for United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley.
A native of Melrose, Massachusetts, Michael was the first and only graduate in history from Northeastern University or the state of Massachusetts to have completed five undergraduate degrees simultaneously. He graduated summa cum laude studying Finance, Political Science, Communications, Entrepreneurship and Management Information Systems. Michael also serves as a Board member for the Neighborhood Organization for Affordable Housing (NOAH), Boston Representative for the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Cities Network, a member of the Boston Public Library’s Young Professionals Committee, the Executive Director of Northeastern’s College of Business Talent Development Committee, an Alumni Mentor and is involved in a number of other charitable organizations.
Phone: (617) 373-7872 | Email: m.lake@neu.edu
Director, Center for Leadership and Public Life
Jay Kaufman has served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives since January 1995 and now chairs the legislature’s Committee on Revenue. He had, for two terms, chaired the Committee on Public Service and led the effort to develop and pass major pension reform initiatives.
His primary legislative interests are education, health care, campaign reform, environmental protection, and social and economic justice. He led the fight to pass and implement the state’s campaign finance reform law, and has chaired special task forces on medical records privacy, the social and ethical implications of genetic technology, and alternatives to property taxes to fund public schools. During his freshman term, he broke a six-year logjam to win passage of the Rivers Act, a major environmental protection bill. He is currently leading the effort to pass the Act for Healthy Massachusetts, a bill that would encourage the substitution of safer alternatives to commonly-used toxic chemicals. He has sponsored legislation aimed at tax fairness and has consistently secured major budget increases for METCO, the state’s premier racial desegregation program.
His monthly “OPEN HOUSE” public policy forum, now in its fourteenth season, has been recognized with the prestigious Beacon Award as the nation’s best televised government relations series. Jay was appointed founding director of Northeastern University’s new center for Leadership and Public Life where he now teaches and leads leadership development workshops for those in or aspiring to public life.
Associate Director of Administration and Finance
Heather began her tenure at the Dukakis Center in the fall of 2000. As our Associate Director of Administration and Finance, she is currently fiscally responsible for all grant, university supported, and gift funds, totaling over $2.5 million annually. Additionally, she is in charge of the Dukakis Center operations, responsible for human resources, project management, and payroll systems. She works closely with the Barry Bluestone on strategic planning and development for the Center. She also assists with marketing, communication, and development initiatives.
Heather also serves as the budget manager for the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. Similar to her role for the Dukakis Center, she functions in the same capacity, managing operations and projects for the School. In May 2008, Heather completed her Masters in Business Administration. During the course of her academic experience, she discovered her interests lie in entrepreneurship, management, and planning.
Heather currently lives in southern New Hampshire with her husband, John, and golden retriever, Vienna.
Phone: (617) 373-3645 | Email: h.seligman@neu.edu
Executive Assistant
Terry Dolan is the Executive Assistant for the Dukakis Center and Policy School. Her background includes 25 years working in the public sector for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts initially as the Special Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner of Public Health, with a focus on fiscal and management issues at the public health hospitals. She joined the State House staff of Governor Michael Dukakis in 1985 as Director of Administration for the Executive Office of the Governor, a position to which she was subsequently re-appointed by Governors Weld, Cellucci, Swift, Romney, and Patrick.
Active in community affairs, she serves as an officer and member of the Executive Board of the Lower Mills Civic Association, Vice President of the Lower Mills Village Association, a member of the Community Advisory Council for the restoration of the Lower Neponset River, and the Civic Engagement subcommittee of the Boston Civic Summit working group. Additionally, she is a Playspace Volunteer with the Horizons for Homeless Children Initiative.
A graduate of Regis College, she holds an MBA from Simmons College. Terry lives in the Baker Square complex in Dorchester Lower Mills, the site of nineteenth and early twentieth century mill buildings of the former Baker Chocolate Company, which have been rehabbed and restored as housing.
Phone: (617) 373-7870 | Email: t.dolan@neu.edu
Senior Research Associates
Alan Clayton-Matthews is Associate Professor and Director of Quantitative Methods in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.
Clayton-Matthews is co-editor of Massachusetts Benchmarks, a joint publication of the University of Massachusetts and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that presents timely information and analysis about the performance of the Massachusetts economy. He is also a Director of the New England Economic Project, a group of economists and managers from academia, business, and government who study and forecast the New England economy.
Prior to joining the faculty of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Clayton-Matthews was an associate professor at UMass Boston. Even while there he had an affiliation with the Dukakis Center. He spent his 2007 sabbatical leave at the Dukakis Center. At the Center, he was the chief designer of the Labor Market Assessment Tool (LMAT) and has served as a consultant on a number of projects including “Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts”.
Previously, Clayton-Matthews has worked as an economist and policy analyst for the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, the Social Welfare Research Institute at Boston College, and DRI/McGraw-Hill. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Boston College.
Russell Lopez is a Senior Research Associate with the Dukakis Center and teaches in the Master of Urban Public Health Program at Northeastern University and at Boston University’s School of Public Health. His research interests include the built environment and health, urban sprawl, and design for public health.
Russell earned his B.S. from Stanford University, a Master of City and Regional Planning from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and a Doctor of Science in Environmental Health from Boston University’s School of Public Health.
Shelley McDonough Kimelberg is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and a Senior Research Associate at the Dukakis Center. Her research focuses on economic development, urban poverty, and social policy. Shelley has served as a principal researcher on the Center’s Economic Development Partnership initiative since 2004. Her primary responsibilities include managing the collection of market data from the private sector, and the development of the Municipal Self-Assessment Tool. This work comprised a significant portion of her doctoral dissertation, Risky Business: An Examination of Firm Location Decisions and Their Implications for Inner Cities.
Prior to her arrival at Northeastern, Shelley spent seven years working in knowledge management for a global management consulting firm. She received her Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. degrees from Harvard University.
Marvin Siflinger, founding Chairman of Housing Partners, Inc., has had over 45 years experience in housing and community development. Beginning at HUD in 1961, Marvin served in the New York and Boston Regional Offices and then served as Area Manager of the HUD Boston Area Office, administering the full range of housing and community development programs. He was appointed Executive Director of the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency in 1983, serving there with distinction until the founding of Housing Partners in 1995. Marvin holds a B.A. from the City College of New York, and an MPA from Syracuse University. He has served as a member of the boards of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, National Housing Trust, Citizens Housing and Planning Association, and B’nai B’rith Senior Citizens Housing Corporation (of which he is currently President). He has received numerous awards for his work, including the prestigious National Public Service Award from the American Society for Public Administration and the National Academy of Public Administration. Marvin has also for many years served on the adjunct faculty of Northeastern University in Boston.
Marvin is particularly interested in the challenges facing public sector administrators as they attempt to solve severe housing needs with insufficient resources.
Email: msifling@housingpartnersinc.com
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Eleanor G. White is President of Housing Partners, Inc. and a founding member of the Center’s World Class Collaborative. She serves as Co-Chair of the Commonwealth Housing Task Force and along with Barry Bluestone and Ted Carman was co-author of the research that led to the successful passage of Chapter 40R and 40S housing legislation in Massachusetts.
She has worked in the fields of affordable housing development, property asset management, and public administration since 1967. She was deputy director and chief of operations at the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency from 1983 to 1995. Previously she held a variety of positions at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1967 to 1983. She has served on a number of housing boards and commissions and has lectured widely on housing and real estate. She has won many awards for her work on affordable housing development.
Research Associates
Research Associate
Chase Billingham is a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center and a Ph.D. candidate in the Northeastern University Department of Sociology. He received a B.A. in sociology and French from Tulane University in 2006 and an M.A. in sociology from Northeastern in 2008.
At the Dukakis Center, Chase’s research has focused on municipal finance, regional housing policy, and local economic development. He has co-authored four installments of the Center’s annual Greater Boston Housing Report Card series. The most recent Housing Report Card, subtitled Housing’s Role in the Ongoing Economic Crisis, highlighted the complex interactions between the housing market and the rest of the regional economy, and suggested that a full recovery from the recent recession will not take place without a return to robust activity in the housing market, both in Greater Boston and in the nation as a whole.
Chase collaborated with Stephanie Pollack and Barry Bluestone on Maintaining Diversity in America’s Transit-Rich Neighborhoods: Tools for Equitable Neighborhood Change. This innovative report demonstrated how the introduction of new public transportation amenities, while providing important assets to urban neighborhoods, may simultaneously spark waves of gentrification that, over time, can lead to the displacement of the very people that those new transit lines are designed to serve. He also contributed to the publication of Staying Power, the Center’s assessment of the current state of and potential opportunities for the manufacturing sector in Massachusetts, as well as The Potential for Uneven Economic Development across Massachusetts Municipalities: An Analysis of the Role of Property Tax and State Local Aid, a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy working paper comparing recent economic trends in older industrial cities and rapidly growing communities in Massachusetts. The latter report highlighted the deleterious effects that an eroding tax base can have on the ability of cities and towns to provide municipal services, and it showed how state intervention, through the provision of local aid, can mitigate the potential for uneven development. Out of this research, Chase also joined Barry Bluestone in writing “The Property Tax and the Fortunes of Older Industrial Cities,” which appeared in the January 2008 issue of Land Lines, the quarterly journal of the Lincoln Institute.
Chase’s academic interests are in urban sociology and the sociology of education. His dissertation focuses on the rise of the school choice movement and the spread of market ideology within the nation’s urban public school systems. This work demonstrates how changes in school structure and pedagogy have had important non-educational effects – specifically, racial segregation and gentrification – on urban schools and the neighborhoods that surround them.
He lives in Jamaica Plain.
Phone: (617) 373-7870 | Email: c.billingham@neu.edu
Research Associate
Anna Gartsman is a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center and a doctoral student in the Northeastern University School of Criminal Justice. She received a B.S. in Linguistics, Computer Science, and Cognitive Psychology from Northeastern University in 2007. Anna’s academic interests are primarily in spatial crime analysis and quantitative methods.
Anna has lived in the Boston area for over 15 years, and currently resides in Brighton, MA.
Phone: (617) 373-3110 | Email: a.gartsman@neu.edu
Research Associate
Nancy is a Research Associate with the Dukakis Center working with the Economic Development Partnership. Her research interests are in local and regional economic development, sustainability, energy, and transportation.
She brings over ten years of experience as a natural resource economist and transportation planner.
Prior to joining the Dukakis Center, Nancy worked as a natural resource economist for CH2M HILL and the California Water Resources Control Board and as a planner for the California Department of Transportation. She is a certified Project Management Professional.
A graduate of Washington State University, Nancy received a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies (Economics, Regional Planning, and Natural Resource Management) and has an MS and BS in Agricultural Economics from Rutgers University. She is a native of New Jersey and is happy to be back in the Northeast to enjoy the four seasons.
Phone: (617) 373-7868 | Email: n.lee@neu.edu
Research Associate
Angelique is a research associate at the Dukakis Center, and is working on the Inner City Business Database. She is currently a second year Master’s student in the Urban and Regional Policy Program at Northeastern University, focusing on social policy and urban poverty. She received her B.S. from Northeastern University in 2010, majoring in Political Science and minoring in History with concentrations in Law and Legal Issues and Public Policy and Administration.
Angelique is from Long Island, New York, but currently lives in the Fenway Area. She enjoys running, reading, volunteering, cooking and exploring the city of Boston.
Email: marcus.an@husky.neu.edu
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Research Associate
Dan is a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center, working with the World Class Cities Partnership, City to City Boston, and the Economic Development Partnership.
Dan received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. His doctoral dissertation focused on political decision making in planning, public participation, and community-based organizations with additional research interests in economic and community development, environmental planning, and environmental justice.
Prior to his doctorate, Dan worked on the brownfields program at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and was a planner at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also worked on a variety of social, public health, and environmental extracurricular projects including the Environmental Justice Initiative (under the direction of Dr. Bunyan Bryant) at the University of Michigan.
Phone: (617) 373-7103 | Email: d.spiess@neu.edu
Research Associate
Liz Williams is a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center working on the 2011 Housing Report Card. She is a doctoral student in Sociology at Northeastern University, specializing in urban social policy and social science research methods. She received her B.A. in Sociology from Clark University in 2004, and her M.A. in Sociology from George Washington University in 2010. Prior to pursuing graduate studies, Liz worked for four years as a research associate at the American Institutes for Research in Washington, DC, where she focused on federal education policy evaluation and provided technical assistance to Title I Program administrators. Liz has also held research positions with the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Good Jobs First.
Liz was born and raised in Middlebury, Connecticut and lived in Washington, DC for six years before relocating to Boston to continue her graduate studies. She loves living in Cambridge, spending time with family and friends, and biking all over the city.
Email: williams.eli@husky.neu.edu
Research Associate
Yingchan Zhang is a Research Associate at the Dukakis Center and a doctoral student in the Northeastern University Department of Sociology. She received her B.A. in Economics from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China in 2007, an M.A. in Regional Economic and Social Development from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2009, and an M.A. in Sociology from Northeastern University in 2011. For her first master’s degree, Yingchan wrote a thesis on the experiences of immigrant nurses in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her research interests include social stratification, immigration, globalization, and urban economic and social development.
Prior to joining the Dukakis Center, Yingchan served as Research Assistant from 2007 to 2009 in the project “An Ethnographic Study of Lowell, MA: Immigration, Globalization and Enterprise in the ‘All-American City.’” In the summer of 2010, she worked as a program assistant at the Center for Family, Work and Community at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Yingchan was born and raised in Chengdu, China. She came to the US for graduate school in 2007 and currently lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
Phone: (617) 373-8754 | Email: ying.zhang@neu.edu
Senior Research Fellows
Joan Fitzgerald is the Interim Dean of the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and the Director of the Law and Public Policy Program at Northeastern University. At the Dukakis Center, Joan brings prior experience and current forward-thinking research focusing on “green growth”.
Her current research includes work on “Emerald Cities”, a comprehensive research project that examines how U.S. and Western European cities address the interrelated issues of global warming, energy dependence and opportunities for green economic development. Based from the findings of her research, this potential includes building new technology-based industry clusters, improving the efficiency of production in existing manufacturing processes, and creating well-paying green jobs in construction, manufacturing, and entirely new advanced technology sectors.
Prior to her work on “Emerald Cities”, Joan has written for several journals and regularly advises government officials on new “green-growth strategies”. Her recent publications include her 2002 economic development book, Economic Revitalization: Strategies and Cases for City and Suburb, Moving Up in the New Economy (2006) and recent articles in the American Prospect focusing on green building and renewable energy.
Before coming to Northeastern University, Joan taught urban policy and public affairs at the New School University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Ohio State University.
Richard O’Bryant is Director of the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute at Northeastern and a Senior Research Fellow with the Dukakis Center. He previously also served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. Richard helps coordinate activities with the Stony Brook Initiative and has developed a number of research proposals on the role of information technology on democratic process.
O’Bryant’s current teaching responsibilities include “Science, Technology and Public Policy”, “Urban Policies and Politics, Current Issues in Cities” and “Suburbs and Economic Institutions and Analysis”. O’Bryant is also co-director of the Political Science Experiential Education internship program. His recent publications include Low-Income Communities: Technological Strategies for Nurturing Community, Empowerment and Self-Sufficiency at a Low-Income Housing Development, a monograph published in 2005 in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s National Forum on Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Higher Education for the Public Good, and a review of Media Access: Social and Psychological Dimensions of a New Technology Use, published in February 2005 in the New Media and Society Journal. His current research interests are information technology and civic, social, and political participation.
Professor O’Bryant served as co-principal investigator of the Camfield Estates/MIT Project, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which included making wireless connectivity available to residents of Camfield Estates, located in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His professional experience also includes serving as a senior software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation (now HP-Compaq), a research associate at the William Monroe Trotter Institute, and former Director of the John D. O’Bryant Community Youth Center.
Born and raised in Boston, O’Bryant received his doctorate in 2004 in Urban and Regional Studies from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. O’Bryant also has a bachelor’s degree in computer systems engineering from Howard University.
Mary Huff Stevenson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Dukakis Center. Stevenson is a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston and past Chair of the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs at UMB’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies.
At the Dukakis Center, Stevenson has been a co-author with Barry Bluestone and Russell Williams of The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Stevenson has been widely published, and writes on a number of issues that complement her specific interests: urban poverty and labor market problems, the economic status of women, and the development of urban public institutions. She is the author of three other books, two of which were co-authored with Dukakis Center director Barry Bluestone: The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000) and Low Wages and the Working Poor published by the University of Michigan in 1973. Her solely authored book, Determinants of Low Wages for Women Workers, was published in 1984.
She has also written for a wide number of publications, including the Eastern Economics Journal, Borderlands of Economics: Essays in Honor of Daniel R. Fusfeld; For Crying out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States; and for the Boston Observer, “The Dynamics of Labor Market Segmentation” and “Sex, Discrimination, and the Division of Labor.”
Russ’ adult life has been an unfolding process of discovery and social activism. For nearly forty years he has engaged the world as a social and business entrepreneur working on issues of social justice and equity. And he doesn’t plan on stopping now.
He is currently the Chair of GreenPeabody, a regional organization working to promote renewable energy resources, energy efficiency, and sustainability on the north shore. He is also a freelance consultant and researcher and an entrepreneur working to create a new consulting practice working on municipal sustainability issues. In 1975 Russ founded the Arlington Food Coop and went on to become a member of the board of directors of the New England Food Coop Organization and a co-founder of the New England Food Coop Network.
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Don Walsh was the Director of Community Relations and Economic Development for NSTAR, the region’s electricity and gas distributor, since its formation in 1999 until 2005, and served as the Director of Economic Development for Boston Edison since 1991. He was responsible for the relationships between NSTAR and the 108 cities and towns comprising the company’s service territory. As a result, he has a variety of real-world experiences built around the role of energy and energy delivery in municipalities. He has a strong background in economic development, particularly urban economic development, housing, and energy.
At the Center, Don was co-director of the research project that culminated in “Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts” and serves as co-chair of the Staying Power Task Force.
In addition to active participation in key private sector efforts to strengthen the Massachusetts economy, he was the founder of the Mass Alliance for Economic Development (MAED), which has become the primary source of real estate information for businesses considering a Massachusetts location. He was also the Founding President of Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, one of the city’s premier Community Development Corporations (CDCs); he is DBEDC’s current president.
A graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, Walsh has a Master’s Degree in Sociology from Northeastern University and an MBA from Harvard University.
Russell Williams is an Associate Professor of Economics at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts who specializes in urban, labor, and institutional economics. At Wheaton he teaches courses in urban economics, the economics of education, the economics of race, and macroeconomics. Williams received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which he attended after winning a Ford Foundation Fellowship. At the Dukakis Center, he has served as a Senior Research Associate working on a number of projects related to minority business enterprise and is a co-author, along with Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson of The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Williams’ professional experience in economics includes previous positions with the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., the Regional Institute for Employment Policy, Abt Associates, and the William Monroe Trotter Institute at UMass Boston. He has contributed to a number of reports and studies dealing with urban economic development, the changing demographic makeup of Greater Boston, workforce training, and youth programs in the inner city. His academic and professional work has used a wide range of methodologies, ranging from interviews and focus group facilitation, to statistical analysis techniques including OLS, probit, and hazard analysis. His writings have been directed to a wide variety of audiences, from academicians to policy-makers to the general public.
In addition to his research, applied work, and teaching in economics, Williams’ other professional experience includes nine years as Associate Director of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc., where he managed 20 professional staff and oversaw operations with a cash flow of $3 million; and consultant work for AHEAD, Inc., an international health and development organization. Williams has volunteered in several capacities, including service as a member of the Board of Managers of the New England Home for Little Wanderers, as a member of the Advisory Board of the New England Advanced Studies Program (an enrichment program for high school students), as co-chair of Operation Big Vote-Boston, and as a member and subcommittee chairperson on the United Way of Massachusetts-Bay Social Services Allocations Review Committee. He has been listed in Who’s Who in the East, and Who’ s Who in American Education.
Williams has been a guest lecturer on numerous occasions addressing topics such as urban economics, economic inequality, and the economics of education. In 1996, he was a participant in a Children’s Defense Fund-sponsored national teleconference on the relationships between economic development and the needs of black children.
In his spare time, Williams enjoys music and watching sports. He is a lifelong pianist, whose pre-college training included studies at South Carolina State University and Peabody Institute of Music (Baltimore). As an adult he served for two years as accompanist for New England Conservatory’ s Community Services Program voice class. Williams lives in Central Massachusetts.
Co-ops and Work Study Students
Office and Research Assistant (Work Study)
I lived most of my life in the Philippines. My family moved to the US after I graduated high school. After spending most of my years in tropical weather, I decided to experience some diversity of climate and attend a college at Boston.
I am currently on my junior year pursuing a BSBA degree in Finance and Accounting. I did my first co-op at State Street Corporation in their Regulatory Reporting and Compliance department. I was highly involved in preparing and filing periodic reports, report findings analysis and Sarbanes Oxley compliance testing. Through this coop, I had a better understanding on the different laws and regulations imposed on bank holding companies.
My career goal is to be able to work for an investment firm and eventually attend graduate school.
Phone: (617) 373-8900 | Email: catubig.k@husky.neu.edu
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Melissa Davis
Office and Research Assistant (Work Study)
Cultural Anthropology, Class of 2015
Melissa Davis was born in Dallas, Texas, though she resided in Houston, Texas for most of her life. While in high school, Melissa was a member of the drum line, Key Club, and Girl Scouts. In her junior year of high school Melissa was an exchange student to Istanbul, Turkey. This experience led her down the path that she is on now, and is the reason she is in her major. Melissa plans to double major in International Business and eventually attend graduate school.
Melissa’s interests include food, travel, music, and sewing.
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Research Assistant
History, Class of 2015
James is a research assistant working on the 2012 Manufacturing Report Card, the Inner City Business Database, and the Discovering Justice Report. James spent a year in eastern Washington working as an Home Auditor for the Weatherization department of Rural Resources Community Action as part of his term of service in Americorps. James has studied abroad in Berlin, Germany and is fluent in German. In Germany, James worked briefly for USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) translating their rules and regulations for video game ratings into English.
He has been performing stand up comedy since 2006 and performed at the 2012 Green Mountain Comedy Festival on top of numerous appearances at multiple night/comedy clubs including Levity Comedy Club, Higher Ground, Nectar’s, and Red Square. He worked as a writer/performer for a comedy radio show in 2009 as part of the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Festival. In 2012, James played the lead role in a dramatic film called Motion for Action, directed by Joe Favini. James can also be heard on his radio show “The Underground Force” on WRBB 104.9FM where is also the General Manager.
Currently James is studying History at Northeastern and intends to become a history teacher.
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Research Assistant
Deirdre is working on the 2012 Manufacturing Report Card, as well as the Discovering Justice report. She is currently studying Human Services and International Affairs and plans to graduate in August 2013. Deirdre has been involved with the Northeastern Alternative Spring Break program for three years, spending the past two years as a team leader.
For her first co-op, Deirdre worked at Bottom Line as a college access counselor to low income high school seniors. In July, she will start her second co-op at AIDS Action Committee as a hotline counselor. Deirdre plans to study abroad in Argentina for the spring semester of 2013.
Deirdre grew up in Framingham, MA, and enjoys traveling, cooking, eating, reading, and Netflix.
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Marketing Co-Op
Journalism, Class of 2013
Cassie is from Barnstable, Massachusetts and is a senior studying journalism at Northeastern University. For her first co-op, she worked at Follett Software as a technical writer for the company’s student information system software. She is currently on her second and final co-op.
While at Northeastern, Cassie developed an interest in sociology, and hopes to combine that interest with her background in writing to work with social issues affecting women, children, and the disadvantaged.
She enjoys swimming, cooking, and music.
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Work Study Student
Political Science with a concentration in Public Policy and Administration, Class of 2014
Stan was originally born in Haiti and moved to America when he was three years old. He was raised in Massachusetts for most of my life. He was later accepted to the Boston Latin Academy and graduated in the Class of 2009. Upon graduation he became a 2009-2010 ACCESS Scholar. From there he was accepted into Northeastern University’s Foundation Year Program (a more structured and supportive Freshman Year Program). He completed the program with high honors and decided to remain at Northeastern to continue his studies.
Stan is now studying Political Science at Northeastern with a concentration in Public Policy and Administration. His role at the Dukakis Center is to video tape the Open Classroom Series, as well as assist John Sarvey in the management of the Dukakis Center website. He also assists in research as needed.
Stan’s ultimate goal is to eventually work with adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds and inspire them to find success through a college education.
Work Study Student
International Affairs and Political Science, Class of 2014
Darya Tsibulskaya was born in Khmelnitsky, Ukraine and emigrated from there to San Francisco, CA with her family when she was seven years old. In high school, she developed an interest in politics. Following this interest, she interned for a District Supervisor in San Francisco City Hall and then went on to serve on the San Francisco Youth Commission for two years. She is now a sophomore here at Northeastern Univeristy majoring in Political Science and minoring in Business Administration.