About us

 

Alexander Casey is the Director for the Housing Affordability Data Lab, the Terner Labs program to create analytical tools and datasets to inform more data-based government decisions. He brings public-facing and managerial experience in housing policy research and real estate economics. Prior to joining the Terner team, Alexander worked as the Senior Manager and Senior Policy Advisor on Zillow Group’s economic research team, analyzing housing data to provide insights and expertise to government, non-profit, and media organizations. Before that, as an Analyst, he worked on consumer protection issues for the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. Alexander holds an MPA from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington, and a BA in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.

Ben Metcalf is the Managing Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley where he leads the expansion and deepening of Terner Center’s work solving housing affordability challenges through policy, practice and innovations. Ben is also the Chief Executive Officer of Terner Housing Innovation Labs, Inc. He holds an appointment as an adjunct professor with the University of California Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning.

In 2015, Ben was appointed by former Governor Jerry Brown to lead California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), a role he held until 2019. During his tenure at the State, Ben played an instrumental role in the passage and implementation of the 2017 Housing Package and oversaw the Department during a period of significant expansion of the state’s financial and regulatory reach into housing and land use matters. In addition, he served on the board of directors of the California Housing Partnership Corporation, the California Housing Finance Agency, and was the founding chair of the State of California’s Homelessness Coordinating and Finance Council.

Prior to HCD, Ben worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., including as an appointee of President Obama as Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs. His responsibilities included oversight of the Federal Housing Administration multifamily guaranteed loan portfolio and a subsidized affordable housing portfolio representing 30,000 multifamily properties across the U.S. As senior advisor to the FHA Commissioner on multifamily housing, he developed key administration priorities related to energy efficiency, housing for the elderly, disabled and formerly homeless, and comprehensive neighborhood revitalization.

Before that, he developed mixed-income and mixed-use communities with California-based BRIDGE Housing Corporation. As a senior project manager at BRIDGE, he sourced affordable housing opportunities and had day-to-day responsibility for a portfolio of major projects from initial due diligence and site acquisition through approvals, design and construction, bringing forward ~$125 million in development. He played key roles in implementing community engagement strategy and successfully securing environmental and land use approvals for four major Bay Area land opportunities representing ~$1.5 billion of new development.

He has a Masters in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College.

Cris Martinez is the Operations Manager at Terner Housing Innovation Labs. Cris leads operational functions including finance, human resources, and administration and supports programmatic operations for the Housing Lab and the Housing Affordability Data Lab. Prior to Terner Labs, he worked as an Operations Manager for a local commercial real estate company. Cris holds a BA in Business Administration from CalState East Bay.

Kara Murray-Badal is the Director of the Housing Lab. She brings a wealth of managerial and project management experience from both the private and non-profit sectors. Before joining the Terner team, she was a Crisis Project Manager at Bayer Healthcare as well as Deputy Director at The Mosaic Project, a non-profit focused on communication across cultures and backgrounds. She’s also an Oakland native with a history in community activism and politics, having consulted on policy for several cities and done communications and field leadership for electoral campaigns. Kara holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Psychology from Stanford University.

Michelle Boyd is the Chief Strategy Officer for Terner Labs. In this role she leads strategic planning, partnerships, and fundraising across Terner Labs’ programs. She started with Terner in 2018 leading the design and launch of the Housing Lab program while pursuing her MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of business. Under her leadership, the Housing Lab supported two cohorts of early-stage ventures that have gone on to raise over $340 million in additional funding, secure significant government partnerships, and provide housing or increased financial security to over 27,000 people.

Michelle brings a decade of experience in community and startup finance, organizational strategy and design, and urban policy research. Prior to joining the Terner team, Michelle worked as a strategy consultant for the Bridgespan Group, collaborating with nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and foundation leaders across issues of community development, housing, and education. She also worked with housing social impact startup, Landed, developing the organization’s impact metrics and fundraising strategy. Michelle holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business, an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Real Estate from UC Berkeley, and a BA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. 

Michelle also serves as an advisor to various coalitions dedicated to housing innovation and impact investing. These include the Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP), a $38-million pooled fund of financial guarantees that backs investments in affordable housing; the Multifamily Impact Council, a new effort to define a shared set of impact metrics across the multifamily investment industry; and the Advanced Building Construction Collaborative, a government-backed effort to spur further innovation in housing construction techniques.

Adam Briones leads Greenlining’s banking, housing, and economic development work. Prior to joining Greenlining, Adam was most recently a Vice President of Real Estate Development at the Genesis Companies in New York, one of the city’s most active African American-owned affordable housing developers. While there, Adam led the acquisition, financing, rehabilitation, and management of 52 affordable rental and homeownership buildings.
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Previously, Adam was a Senior Analyst for HR&A Advisors, a leading national consulting firm specializing in real estate and economic development advisory services. At HR&A, Adam supported the public-private development business line and provided market, financial, and deal structure analyses on behalf of both public agencies and private landowners in Boston, Atlanta, and the New York tri-state area. Before that, Adam was a Housing Fellow with New York City’s primary affordable housing finance agencies, the NYC Housing Development Corporation, and the Department of Housing Preservation & Development. As a Housing Fellow, he closed construction and permanent financing on over 1,300 units totaling more than $150 million in debt and tax credit equity. Adam has also interned with the office of Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the House Financial Services Committee in Washington D.C. as well as with the community development finance group of a major California lender.
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Adam began his career at The Greenlining Institute, where he worked from 2006 to 2010 on issues including affordable homeownership, transparency in philanthropy, redistricting, and national banking policy. Adam holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California Los Angeles with a concentration in affordable housing development and finance and earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from UC Santa Cruz.

Bio coming soon

Carol Galante is the I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor in Affordable Housing and Urban Policy and the Faculty Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation. As Faculty Director, Galante leads the strategic direction of the Center’s activities. The Terner Center pursues ambitious projects that combine research, policy, and private sector innovation in order to further housing affordability, racial and economic inclusion, and sustainability in California and nationally. She is also a founder of The Housing Lab, an accelerator for early-stage ventures with the potential to fundamentally improve the housing market and make it more affordable and fair.

Galante served in the Obama Administration for over five years as the Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing programs.

Galante provided key leadership in the housing sector during the recession of 2009, including strengthening FHA’s infrastructure and policies while providing access to credit that helped stabilize the housing market  She also developed signature initiatives that provided better opportunities to low-income families including Choice Neighborhoods and the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program.

Prior to her appointment at HUD, Galante was President and Chief Executive of BRIDGE Housing Corporation, the largest non-profit developer of affordable, mixed-income and mixed-use developments in California. Early in her career Galante also worked for local government in city planning and community economic development.

Galante serves on the non-profit Board of Directors of The Community Builders.  She is also an advisor to Factory_OS, an innovative new company changing how we build. She holds a Master of City Planning from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Wesleyan.

Catherine Bracy is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of TechEquity Collaborative. Before founding TEC, she was Code for America’s Senior Director of Partnerships and Ecosystem where she grew Code for America’s Brigade program into a network of over 50,000 civic tech volunteers in 80+ cities across the US. During her tenure, Code for America’s Brigade was responsible for 64% of the total growth in the civic tech community in the country.
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She also founded Code for All, the global network of Code-­for organizations with partners on six continents. During the 2012 election cycle she was Director of Obama for America’s Technology Field Office in San Francisco, the first of its kind in American political history. She was responsible for organizing technologists to volunteer their skills for the campaign’s technology and digital efforts. Prior to joining the Obama campaign, she ran the Knight Foundation’s 2011 News Challenge and before that was the Administrative Director at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. She is on the board of directors at the Public Laboratory and the Data & Society Research Institute.

Ophelia Basgal is a senior executive consultant with InclusionINC, a leading global consulting and learning organization specializing in inclusion and diversity solutions. Prior to her current position, she was the regional administrator of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Region IX (Pacific/Hawaii), a position she held from May 2010 to March 2016 and where she was recognized as a national expert on housing and community development issues. Before joining HUD, she was vice president of community relations at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. She managed the company’s $20 million charitable contributions program and oversaw the company’s community engagement programs, partnerships with community-based organizations, and employee volunteerism program for 20,000 employees.
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Her current professional and community service includes serving on the board of the Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Association—an $8 billion public pension fund—where she serves on the Operations Committee and formerly chaired the Board and the Actuarial and Budget Committees. She also sits on the San Francisco Foundation’s Board of Directors, where she chairs the Program Related Investments Committee and Finance Committee, and the Mills College board of trustees where she is a member of the Executive Committee and Resources and Sustainability Committee.
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Her previous board affiliations include the Oakland Museum of California Foundation, the advisory council to the National Housing Conference’s Center on Housing Policy, and the Merritt Community Capital Corporation. She also served as a member of the State of California’s Commission on Judicial Performance. Ophelia holds a master’s degree in social welfare from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis on social welfare administration, and a BA in Sociology from Arizona State University.

Since early 2018 Priya Jayachandran has led National Housing Trust (NHT). NHT is committed to the preservation of home, opportunity and dignity through affordable housing. In her role as CEO, Priya leads NHT’s engagement in public policy, lending and energy sustainability.
Priya previously led Housing Development at Volunteers of America (VOA). In her role, she managed the strategic direction, acquisition and development of rental housing for VOA. Priya served in the Obama Administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 2014 until 2017, as Senior Policy Advisor, Director of the front office of Multifamily Housing and ultimately as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs.  
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Prior to joining HUD, Priya spent more than 15 years in community development real estate banking in New York and Washington, DC. During that time, she led client teams delivering debt and tax credit equity for affordable housing and charter schools. Under Priya's leadership, the Mid-Atlantic market at both Citi and Bank of America were the top production offices in the country. Priya is a recognized industry expert on affordable finance deal structuring. Priya has also worked as a consultant to women’s microcredit organizations in La Paz, Bolivia; Credit Suisse as an investment banking analyst; and California State Treasurer Kathleen Brown as a Capital Fellow. Priya earned her B.A. from the University of California and her MPA from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs

Ann Sewill is the General Manager of the City of Los Angeles’ Housing + Community Investment Department, responsible for direction and oversight of the City’s programs for housing preservation development, accessible housing production, community investment, rent stabilization, and code compliance. Prior to joining HCIDLA in July 2020, Ms. Sewill was the Vice President, Health & Housing, at the California Community Foundation, overseeing grant making, lending, public policy and advocacy portfolios, working to develop affordable housing to stabilize communities and end homelessness, and to address root causes affecting the health of Angelenos.

Before joining the foundation in June 2006, Sewill was Vice President and California Director of Enterprise Community Partners; Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department; CEO of the Los Angeles Community Design Center (now Abode Communities), and Housing Director for the City of Santa Monica. She also worked with the Los Angeles offices of the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In the past Sewill has served as a director of the Los Angeles branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the Affordable Housing Advisory Council of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, the Loan and Grant Committee of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing, and of Mercy Housing California. She currently serves on the boards of the California Housing Consortium and the Los Angeles Development Fund.

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Daryl J. Carter is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Avanath Capital Management, LLC, a California-based investment firm that acquires, renovates, and operates apartment properties, with an emphasis on affordable and workforce communities. Carter directs the overall

strategy and operations of the Company. Since its formation in 2008, Avanath has acquired $2.5 billion of properties in 13 states in the U.S., comprising 12,000 apartment units. Avanath is vertically integrated and is an SEC registered investment advisor and an institutional fund manager, with capabilities that include acquisition sourcing and underwriting, construction, asset management, and on-site property management.

Carter has 40 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry. Previously, he was an Executive Managing Director of Centerline Capital Group. Carter became part of the Centerline team when his company, Capri Capital Finance, was acquired by Centerline in 2005. Carter co-founded and served as Co-Chairman of the Capri Capital family of companies. He was instrumental in building Capri to a diversified real estate investment firm with $8 billion in real estate equity and debt investments under management. Prior to Capri, Carter was Regional Vice President at Westinghouse Credit Corporation and a Second Vice President at Continental Bank.

Carter holds a Master ofArchitecture and a Master of Business Administration, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan. Carter serves on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Sloan School of Management.  In 2015, Carter received the MIT Sloan School Distinguished Alumni Award and served as the 2015 commencement speaker for the Sloan School MBA graduation.

Carter is a Past Chairman of the National Multifamily Housing Council. Previously, Carter served as an independent director on the boards of the following companies: Catellus Development Corporation (CDX), Silver Bay Realty Trust (SBY), and Whitestone REIT (WSR).

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In May of 2020, Gustavo Velasquez was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development. In this leadership role, Velasquez leads California’s housing policy agenda and administers a wide range of programs that produce, preserve, and protect affordable housing and communities of opportunity across the state.  

Velasquez was a senior director at the Urban Institute, a renowned national research organization working to provide data analysis and insights to policymakers and practitioners in ways both relevant and actionable. Velasquez served for nearly three years as assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He served on behalf of the president as the strategic lead of the fair housing and inclusive community agenda for the Obama administration. During his tenure, HUD achieved groundbreaking enforcement victories in fair lending and in major housing discrimination cases. Velasquez led efforts to promulgate the landmark Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, a key tool for cities, states, and other HUD funding recipients to reduce inequality and disparities in access to opportunity.

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Linda Mandolini has served as President of Eden Housing since 2001. In her role at Eden, Mandolini oversees affordable housing production, resident support services, and property management components of the organization, and a staff of more than 400 employees. She is guided in her work by Eden’s active volunteer board of directors.

Under her leadership, Eden Housing has become one of the most productive and successful nonprofit affordable housing developers and owners in California and is nationally recognized for its work. To date, Eden has developed or acquired more than 11,000 affordable rental apartments in communities throughout California, completed three portfolio mergers and acquisitions, and has launched a number of initiatives to increase affordable housing preservation and to promote sustainable practices.

Mandolini has received a number of awards, including being inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2017, and being named to the San Francisco Business Times’ Forever Influential Honor Roll in 2016.

Mandolini is a leader in housing policy on the local, state, and national levels. She was one of the affordable housing leaders who worked tirelessly for the passage of California Housing bonds that collectively generated $10 billion for housing.

Prior to relocating to California in 1996, Mandolini held various community development positions in Boston. Mandolini received her BA degree from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and earned an Master of Business Administration at Boston University.

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Mark M. Zandi is chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, where he directs economic research. Moody’s Analytics, a subsidiary of Moody’s Corp., is a leading provider of economic research, data, and analytical tools. Dr. Zandi is a co-founder of Economy.com, which Moody’s purchased in 2005.

Dr. Zandi is on the board of directors of MGIC, the nation’s largest private mortgage insurance company, and is the lead director of Reinvestment Fund, one of the nation’s largest community development financial institutions, which makes investments in underserved communities.

He is a trusted adviser to policymakers and an influential source of economic analysis for businesses, journalists, and the public. Dr. Zandi frequently testifies before Congress and conducts regular briefings on the economy for corporate boards, trade associations, and policymakers at all levels. He is often quoted in national and global publications and interviewed by major news media outlets, and is a frequent guest on CNBC, NPR, Meet the Press, CNN, and various other national networks and news programs.

Dr. Zandi is the author of Paying the Price: Ending the Great Recession and Beginning a New American Century, which provides an assessment of the monetary and fiscal policy response to the Great Recession. His other book, Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis, is described by the New York Times as the “clearest guide” to the financial crisis.

Dr. Zandi earned his BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Matthew Desmond is the Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he joined the Harvard Society of Fellows as a Junior Fellow. He is the author of four books, including Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016), which won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, Carnegie Medal, and PEN / John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. The principal investigator of The Eviction Lab, Desmond’s research focuses on poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, racial inequality, and ethnography. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award, and the William Julius Wilson Early Career Award. A Contributing Writer for the New York Times Magazine, Desmond was listed in 2016 among the Politico 50, as one of “fifty people across the country who are most influencing the national political debate.”

Richard Rothstein is a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow (emeritus) at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation. He is also the author of many other articles and books on race and education, which can be found on his web page at the Economic Policy Institute: http://www.epi.org/people/richard-rothstein/. Previous influential books include Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black–White Achievement Gap and Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right. He welcomes questions and comments at riroth@epi.org.

Shola Olatoye (o-LAH-twoh-yay) is a Terner Center Fellow and on the Terner Advisory Board. She is an experienced real estate and management executive with more than 20 years of experience launching and managing public-private partnerships. She served as Vice President of Business Development for Suffolk Construction, a national construction management firm. Prior to joining Suffolk, Shola served as Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the largest public housing authority in the nation. As a Mayoral appointee, Shola launched NextGeneration NYCHA, the agency’s 10-year turnaround plan. She led her team to balance the $3.1 billion operating budget for three consecutive years, launched a major real estate development program, and founded a social impact nonprofit, the Fund for Public Housing.

Olatoye graduated with a BA with honors in history and African American studies from Wesleyan University. She also earned a Master of  Public Administration from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where she currently serves as a Visiting Scholar teaching in the Masters of Urban Planning program on management and leadership.

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Toni Steele is a Senior Real Estate Executive serving as Google Real Estate Portfolio Lead based in Silicon Valley. Her role ensures Google’s workplace and related business supply/demand needs are met through direct holdings, new development, and market transactions (acquisitions and leasing). Steele is also Co-Lead of Google’s $1 billion Affordable Housing Fund.

Steele is an engaged, innovative, and versatile leader with a collaborative commercial approach, cultural embodiment, technical acumen, and a leading execution track record on multiple investment and product types (domestic & abroad) valued in excess of $50 billion.

She has extensive capital markets & asset management experience from over 22 years with Goldman Sachs (International Country Lead for Italy & Germany | US Vice President) on large holding acquisitions, direct and NPL real estate portfolios, and country platforms. Her key focus areas include progressive office, life science, redevelopment, urban campuses, and film studios. While JLL Executive VP of Southern California Capital Markets, she co-lead the Netflix purchase of the Albuquerque Studios.

She holds a Master of Business Administration, summa cum laude, from the International University of Monaco and a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude from Pepperdine University. She also attended UCLA her freshman year and later for real estate studies.

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Selection Committee Member

Lisa Rice is the President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), the nation’s only national civil rights agency solely dedicated to eliminating all forms of housing discrimination. NFHA is also the trade association for over 200 member organizations across the country that work to eliminate barriers in the housing markets and expand equal housing and lending opportunities. NFHA provides a range of programs to affirmatively further fair housing including community development, neighborhood stabilization, training, education, outreach, advocacy, consulting, and enforcement initiatives.

Rice is a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Board of Directors, Center for Responsible Lending Board of Directors, JPMorgan Chase Consumer Advisory Council, Mortgage Bankers Association’s Consumer Advisory Council, Freddie Mac Affordable Housing Advisory Council, Quicken Loans Advisory Forum, Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Advisory Council, and FinRegLab’s Machine Learning Advisory Board.

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Yusef Freeman is the Managing Director of California for the Jonathan Rose Companies, leading ground-up development and acquisitions on the West Coast out of the Companies’ Oakland, CA office.

Prior to joining the Rose Companies, Freeman was a Vice President of Investments in the transactions group at PGIM Real Estate, sourcing investment opportunities for the real estate private equity funds of the company.

Prior to joining PGIM in 2018, Freeman was the Managing Director for McCormack Baron Salazar, leading west coast operations and new business development nationally for the company, and a Graduate Program lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.

Freeman holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley where he spent one year studying abroad at the American University in Cairo, Egypt; a Master of Public Administration from New York University, where he majored in public finance as a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow; and an alum of the Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence Fellowship Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Alex Weinberg is a Graduate Student Fellow at the Housing Lab focusing on ventures that are pioneering innovative real estate development models. Alex is currently pursuing his MBA at the Haas School of Business, where he is studying Real Estate and Finance with an emphasis on socially responsible urban development. Prior to that, he worked as a Consultant at Bain & Co. where he partnered with clients across industries to solve an array of business and organizational challenges. He holds a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.

Colby is a first-year MBA student at Berkeley Haas. She is originally from Honolulu, HI - a place that deeply influenced her passion for affordable housing and racial equity. Prior to Haas, she worked for accelerator and venture capital fund Endeavor Global, helping entrepreneurs in emerging markets scale against all odds. She eventually felt compelled to bring what she learned back home, becoming employee #4 for a local Hawai’i accelerator whose focus was on economic development. Among other initiatives, she helped launch and manage its venture capital fund and e-commerce brand/strategy, before launching her own digital marketing business to help in more impactful ways. In her free time, you can find her in nature, teaching/dancing Hip-Hop, or helping to rematriate the land under the learning of Indigenous practitioners.

Haley Tiu is a data scientist-turned policy wonk specializing in housing policy and economics. Haley studied statistics and Chinese at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate student, then went on to work as a data scientist for five years--first at Beghou Consulting and then at McKinsey & Co. Haley is currently a student at the Goldman School of Public Policy, where she has turned her focus to policy issues related to housing and climate change, aiming to analyze these issues from an economic and quantitative perspective.

Hannah is a second-year MBA student at Berkeley Haas and a returning graduate student fellow with the Housing Lab. She is originally from San Rafael, CA, and after attending undergrad at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, she lived in Washington D.C. for 5 years where she worked in management consulting for the U.S. federal and state agencies. She advised clients on improving their citizen and customer experience by applying human-centered design methodologies to business problems. In coming to business school, she is excited to explore housing innovations and better understand policy, technology, and finance solutions to affordable housing. She is especially passionate about addressing the housing crisis in California specifically, given her connection to the area.

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Leslye began her work in housing as a student lobbyist, providing her with the passion and drive to create and implement solutions to the state’s housing crisis. While still at UC Davis, she joined the California Department of Housing and Community Development where she had the opportunity to work with some of the first State grant and lending programs. From there she moved on to the City of San Jose Housing Department where she spent 24 years, including 14 years as Director. Upon leaving the City, she co-founded SV@Home, a housing policy and advocacy nonprofit working in the high-cost Silicon Valley. She now works as a consultant and is happy to be working with the Terner Center and the Terner Housing Labs on a number of exciting projects.
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Leslye has served on a number of federal, State, and regional housing boards and was the Co-Chair of CASA—the Committee to House the Bay Area, a nine-county regional effort to respond to the Bay Area’s housing crisis. She is on the Board of the Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI) and the San Jose Earthquakes Foundation and is a member of the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women.

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Snow Zhu (she/ her) was born in Shanghai and grew up in San Francisco and San Diego. She holds a B.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley and has returned as a graduate student in the Master of City Planning program. Before her graduate studies, Snow worked at an Oakland-based consulting firm where she advised cities and developers on affordable housing feasibility and financing tools for public-private partnerships. Upon graduation, she hopes to use her skills to continue supporting equitable real estate development.

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Terence Chan is  an MBA candidate at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Prior to Haas, he worked for the Singaporean government for over a decade focusing on affordable housing and real estate markets. His expertise includes data and policy analysis, financial modeling and organizational development. He is passionate about solving complex social problems that lie at the intersection of public policy, business and technology. In his free time, he loves exploring Bay Area playgrounds and parks with his family.