Dr. Rachel Meltzer succeeds Alec Gershberg as the Chair of Milano’s newly named Master of Science in Public and Urban Policy program.
Rachel commented on her appointment, “Thank you, Alec, for leading the program for the past five years and for supporting the students and the faculty in the important work we do. I’m excited to move forward with our new name, which accurately captures the program’s breadth of policy training and scholarship as well as expertise in urban studies. Cities are where inclusive and innovative policies are tested and grown and we will continue to use these settings as laboratories for informing effective and just public policies more broadly.”
Rachel earned her doctorate in Public Policy and M.P.A. from New York University. Her research is broadly concerned with urban economies and how market and policy forces can shape disparate outcomes for neighborhoods. She focuses on issues related to housing, land use, economic development and local public finance. Current projects look at how and why retail and commercial services change in neighborhoods undergoing economic and racial transitions and how Hurricane Sandy impacted neighborhood economic activity in New York City.
Her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She teaches classes on policy analysis, quantitative methods, urban economic development and public finance
