Board of Trustees
Joel L. Fleishman (Chairman)
Professor of Law & Public Policy, and Director of the Samuel & Ronnie Heyman Center for Ethics, Public Policy and Professions, Duke University
Video Interview: Joel Fleishman on the Role of Foundations
Mr. Fleishman is a professor, lawyer, and leading expert on American philanthropy. He has served as president of The Atlantic Philanthropic Service Company (the U.S. program staff for Atlantic Philanthropies) and was the founding director of what is now the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.
What Mr. Fleishman says about the Urban Institute:
"In the several fields of public policy analysis in which it works, the Urban Institute is the most widely admired American think tank providing objective, reliable evidence-based research to government, scholars, the press, and the public. It is a resource for the public interest of incalculable value."
Robert M. Solow (Vice Chairman)
Institute Professor of Economics Emeritus, MIT
Video interview: Robert M. Solow on the Global Economic Crisis
Dr. Solow is an economic theorist whose many honors include the Nobel Prize for Economics and the National Medal of Science. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
What Dr. Solow says about the Urban Institute:
"Making our economy work better for everyone is a difficult job at best. If we are ignorant about basic facts, the ways in which they are interrelated, and the effects of policies, it becomes an impossible job. An organization with a long track record of careful, sober, nonideological, data-based research is a treasure. There are very few of them. The Urban Institute is one."
J. Adam Abram
President and CEO of James River Group, Inc., Chairman of Franklin Holdings Ltd., and Chairman of Piedmont Community Banking Holdings, Inc.
Mr. Abram has founded and directed four companies in financial services and real estate: Adaron Group, Inc., Front Royal, Inc., James River Group, Inc., and, most recently, Piedmont Community Bank Holdings, Inc., a federally chartered bank holding company with plans to create a community bank to serve southern Virginia, North Carolina, and parts of South Carolina.
What Mr. Abram says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute has a well-deserved reputation as the best nonpartisan source for careful and timely analyses of knotty issues. The observations of its researchers are always well developed and clearly expressed. I am proud to be associated with an institution known for sponsoring tough-minded, nonpartisan thinkers dedicated to identifying workable solutions to our country’s most difficult economic and social problems."
Afsaneh Beschloss
President and CEO of the Rock Creek Group
Mrs. Beschloss is an economist with experience in finance and investments as well as in energy and environmental areas. She heads an investment group and was Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer at the World Bank where she also held other high offices, and has worked at J.P. Morgan and Shell International Group Planning. She also taught international trade at Oxford University and is a Trustee of the Ford Foundation, and chairs its investment committee.
What Mrs. Beschloss says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute has always been a national resource, but never more than now. Especially in this time of economic crisis and a world changing more rapidly than ever, we more than ever need that famously disinterested, apartisan, and strenuously honest analysis that enables both leaders and citizens to make the best decisions for the good of all of us. If the Urban Institute didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it."
Jamie S. Gorelick
Partner, WilmerHale
Ms. Gorelick is a lawyer with high-level government experience. A former member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, she has also been deputy attorney general of the United states and general counsel of the Department of Defense.
What Ms. Gorelick says about the Urban Institute:
"No other institution focuses on issues critical to our cities—housing policy, educational and health choices, issues of justice and fairness, tax and budget policy—in the manner and with the depth and integrity characteristic of the Urban Institute’s scholars. I am proud to be a part of the Institute’s work."
Richard C. Green, Jr.
Director of The Calvin Group LLC and Chairman of the Midwest Research Institute
Mr. Green is an energy industry executive and expert. He has been CEO of Aquila, Inc., a regulated utility, and he expanded UtiliCorp United, predecessor of Aquila, into a Fortune 30 company.
What Mr. Green says about the Urban Institute:
"People recognize that the Urban Institute is a critical player in policy debates given its rigorous, objective, nonpartisan research. Its well-known policy experts make its research especially valuable to policy-makers."
Fernando Guerra
Director of Health, San Antonio Metropolitan Health District
Dr. Guerra is a pediatrician, civic leader, and professor of Pediatrics. A public official, he also teaches at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base, and the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas.
What Dr. Guerra says about the Urban Institute:
"The Institute serves as a most valuable resource in health and social services research that is evidence-based and relevant for our work in public health and public policy."
Freeman Hrabowski, III
President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Dr. Hrabowski is an expert on science and math performance, specializing in minority participation and performance in these fields. He currently advises the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and schools and universities nationwide.
What Dr. Hrabowski says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute is important to America’s future because it’s where leading researchers focus on the critical issues facing the nation—from health care and education to the economy. I enjoy serving on the board because we get to see firsthand how these experts grapple with these challenges and provide policymakers with the facts and perspectives needed to help them make informed decisions that affect all Americans."
Annette L. Nazareth
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Ms. Nazareth is a lawyer and a former policymaker. She served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and as the Director of the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets. She has also held senior legal positions in the investment banking industry.
What Ms. Nazareth says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute plays a key role in furthering a thoughtful national dialogue on critical social and economic issues facing our country. Its mission could not be more important."
Melvin L. Oliver
Dean of Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Dr. Oliver is a university administrator, professor, expert on racial and urban inequality and poverty, and former foundation executive. He has been vice president of the Asset building and Community Development Program at the Ford Foundation and professor of sociology at UCLA.
What Dr. Oliver says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute is one of the country’s premier research and policy organizations. From its inception, its core mission has been to tackle problems of economic and racial inequality. At every junction of progress on these fronts—health disparities, housing discrimination, and welfare reform—the Institute’s work has played a crucial role. The Urban Institute is an indispensable national resource."
Joshua B. Rales
Founder and Managing Partner, of RFI Associates
Mr. Rales is a lawyer, investor, and philanthropist. Through his RFI Foundation, Mr. Rales supports organizations committed to educational equity, cancer research, health care for the uninsured, and other social services for the underprivileged.
What Mr. Rales says about the Urban Institute:
"At a time when our society is looking for leadership to solve very complex social and economic problems, I cannot think of an organization better equipped to participate in this process, nor more respected, than the Urban Institute."
Robert D. Reischauer
President, The Urban Institute
Dr. Reischauer is an economist, nationally known expert on health care and fiscal issues, former government official, and nonprofit executive. He has served as director of the Congressional Budget Office, a fellow of the Brookings Institution, and vice chairman of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Early in his career, he was vice president of the Urban Institute.
What Dr. Reischauer says about the Urban Institute:
"Working with some of the nation’s brightest and most policy-savvy researchers on many of the most important policy challenges of our time is a privilege. So is making sure the Institute has the wherewithal needed to unleash and sustain the staff’s exceptional creativity and commitment to excellence."
Jeremy Travis
President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York
Mr. Travis is a national expert on criminal justice, a lawyer, an educator, and a public servant. He has launched a national research program on prisoner reentry at the Urban Institute, directed the National Institute of Justice, held high-level positions in the New York City Policy Department and the Mayor’s office, clerked for Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals, and worked for the Vera Institute of Justice.
What Mr. Travis says about the Urban Institute:
"The Urban Institute is a national treasure. It provides a rare voice of reason in policy debates too often dominated by sound bites and political posturing."
Anthony A. Williams
Executive Director, Global Government Practice, Corporate Executive Board
Mr. Williams’ career spans public service, real estate development, and teaching. He has been mayor of the District of Columbia; CFO for the District; CEO of Ramsey Group, Inc.; and an executive in many federal, state, and municipal agencies. He also teaches at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
What Mr. Williams says about the Urban Institute:
"A ‘cut above’ is how I describe the Institute’s work—meticulous but also real-world and innovative. I know from my years in government at all levels how vitally important credible data and sharp analysis are to the workings of good government and how much of both the Urban Institute has provided for decades."
Judy Woodruff
Co-Anchor and Senior Correspondent, The PBS NewsHour
Ms. Woodruff is a nationally known broadcast journalist. She has been CNN’s prime anchor and senior correspondent, chief Washington correspondent for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, anchor of Frontline, and NBC’s White House correspondent.
What Ms. Woodruff says about the Urban Institute:
"With the country facing ever more complicated and polarizing challenges, the Urban Institute is uniquely positioned to provide accurate, credible data and research to help address the toughest questions of our time. The work that UI does has never been more valuable than it is today as we enter the second decade of the 21st century."
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