Margery Austin Turner directs the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities. An expert on urban policy and neighborhood issues, Ms. Turner analyzes issues of residential location, racial and ethnic discrimination and its contribution to neighborhood segregation and inequality, and the role of housing policies in promoting residential mobility and location choice. She has co-written two national housing discrimination studies, which use paired testing to determine the incidence of discrimination against minority homeseekers. She has also extended the paired testing methodology to measure discrimination in employment and mortgage lending. Ms. Turner served as deputy assistant secretary for research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 through 1996, focusing HUD’s research agenda on the problems of racial discrimination, concentrated poverty, and economic opportunity in America’s metropolitan areas.
Susan J. Popkin is a principal research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities. A nationally recognized expert on assisted housing, mobility, and the "hard to house," Dr. Popkin directs the "Roof Over Their Heads: Changes and Challenges for Public Housing Residents" research initiative, which examines the impact radical changes in public housing policy over the past decade have had on residents’ lives. Dr. Popkin is the lead author of The Hidden War: Crime and the Tragedy of Public Housing in Chicago, has written numerous papers and book chapters on housing and poverty-related issues, and is co-author of the forthcoming book, Moving to Opportunity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty.
Lynette Rawlings is a research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities. Dr. Rawlings’ research examines how the structure, demographics, and governance of America’s urban communities shape the quality of life and opportunities available to their residents. As a part of this body of work, Dr. Rawlings has focused on concentrated poverty, neighborhood racial and ethnic change, public housing transformation, and inter-municipal cooperation in metropolitan areas. Dr. Rawlings also founded and directs the Urban Institute Summer Academy for Public Policy Analysis and Research. The Summer Academy is an eight-week program of practical research training and exposure to public policy careers for promising minority undergraduates.
