Staff
In UI’s headquarters office we have more than 25 experts and project managers, supported by the administrative systems and financial management of the Urban Institute. In overseas offices and projects there are an additional 200 staff. Below is a partial listing.
| IAC Research Staff | | IAC Overseas Staff |
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| Cadwell, Charles —Center Director
Ahmed, Iman
Clabaugh, Colby
Conway, Francis
Cooley, Sharon
Gaertner, Kathleen
Engelman, Kyle
Jindal, Priya
Kaganova, Olga
Kimble, Deborah
Mark, Katharine
Merrill, Sally R.
Mikeska, Gretchen
Mytkowicz, Emily
Nayyar-Stone, Ritu
Parker, Leslie
Pigey, Juliana H.
Polen, Sarah
Rabenhorst, Carol
Rennane, Stephanie
Thompson, Leigh A.
Vayanis, Karla | | Beard, Duane
Cartier, William
Chmura, Krzysztof
Curnow, Kevin
Davis, Marilynne
Epstein, Peter
Golda, Andrew
Krause, Bill
Popovic, Olga
Romanik, Clare |
| Finance and Operations Staff
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| David Miller
Stretz, Jessica
Baghdasarian, Louisa |
Staff Profiles
Chas Cadwell – Center Director
A lawyer with 30 years’ work experience in economic reform, deregulation, research oversight, and non-profit leadership in the US and in developing countries, Mr. Cadwell joined the Urban Institute (UI) in May 2007. His work targets governance reform, aid effectiveness, and integrating research and policy reform.
From 1990-2006 Mr. Cadwell was Director of the IRIS Center in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. IRIS conducted research on economic development and reform in developing countries and worked with reform leaders in more than 70 countries to understand and improve governance and economic policies. Mr. Cadwell worked with IRIS founder, Professor Mancur Olson, to launch and build the IRIS center. Following Olson’s death in 1998, the University made Mr. Cadwell Principal Investigator at the IRIS Center. In 2001 he received the University’s Distinguished International Service award.
Throughout his career Mr. Cadwell has assembled teams of economists, lawyers, and others to advance the understanding of how institutions of property rights and contract enforcement contribute to economic growth, and the nature of the incentives of various forms of government to produce these and other market-augmenting public goods. He has overseen teams working in dozens of countries to develop the research capability of local institutions, analyze policy options, and advance specific reforms. Mr. Cadwell’s work has included assistance in the development of civil codes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union and regulatory simplification, decentralization, and local government reform in places such as Egypt, Indonesia, Nepal, Romania, and Russia. In Bangladesh he worked on reforms in both the district courts and the Supreme Court that increased accountability and transparency of judicial actions. For the European Commission he developed benchmarks of commercial legal reform in six Arab states with which the EU has trade agreements. At IRIS he launched the IRIS Index research program on institutions and growth. For USAID he has designed training for economists; reviewed various assessments and indexes for their practical utility; and advised on policies related to fragile states, civil society development, and the political economy of reform. For the World Bank, Mr. Cadwell has overseen assessments of work on water and sanitation, social capital, measurement of corruption, and development of institutional assessment methods.
Mr. Cadwell’s publications include Market-Augmenting Government, edited with Omar Azfar (University of Michigan Press, 2003) and numerous book chapters, presentations, and speeches.
Cadwell is a graduate of Yale College (1973) and the National Law Center at The George Washington University (1977). He has worked in the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, the Office of Advocacy at the US Small Business Administration, in private law practice, and – in the pre-Internet era – in the export information business. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two school-aged daughters.
Areas of Expertise: Aid effectiveness; governance reform and political economy in developing countries; anti-corruption; the role of think tanks in reform; courts and regulatory systems; measuring institutions and reform; civil society/government interactions; and private sector development
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Iman Ahmed – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Iman Ahmed is a Research Assistant/Project Coordinator at the Urban Institute’s Center on International Development and Governance (IDG). Ms. Ahmed joined IDG in October 2007 and has developed an interest in housing policy, local economic development, and anti-corruption. She has a regional interest in the Middle East and is semi-fluent in Arabic. She is currently the Project Coordinator for the Pakistan Districts That Work project, for which she coordinates with project field staff and consultants, prepares budgets, monitors and reviews expenditures and cost forecasts, prepares financial reports, coordinates contractual issues, and prepares and edits deliverables. In November 2008 she will join IDG’s MCC Anti-Corruption projects as a short-term resident advisor in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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Louisa Baghdasarian – Administrative Associate
Ms. Baghdasarian, an Administrative Associate at the Urban Institute since June 2000, has more than 17 years of experience working in the international sector. She is responsible for managing and coordinating IDG’s workflow; serving as a liaison between the home office and overseas offices/centers; providing administrative support to IDG’s worldwide projects; overseeing IDG’s time reporting process and allowances; tracking all internal expenditures; coordinating travel arrangements and planning; updating and improving Center administrative systems and procedures; and scheduling and coordinating meetings, retreats, and other events. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Baghdasarian held a position with Partners in Economic Reform (PIER) in Washington DC, where she worked closely with US governmental organizations, management and labor organizations in the Newly Independent States (NIS), and Solidarity representatives from Poland. Following her arrival in the US from Armenia in 1991, Ms. Baghdasarian started working for MRM Language Research Center where she developed an Eastern Armenian-English dictionary and an Armenian-English journalism textbook. As an independent contractor/translator, she translated numerous training manuals for the State Department. Ms. Baghdasarian received an MA from Yerevan State Pedagogical University (Armenia) in Pedagogics with an emphasis on methods of teaching a second language. She has headed the department of Foreign Languages at the Armenian Ministry of Education, and has traveled extensively throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She speaks English, Armenian, and Russian fluently, and has a working knowledge of French, Bulgarian, and several other Slavic languages.
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Colby Clabaugh – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Colby Clabaugh joined UI’s Center on International Development and Governance (IDG) in June 2008. Mr. Clabaugh provides budgetary, contractual, and technical support to several UI projects including Ethiopia Financial Transparency and Accountability Survey (FTAPS), MCC Benin Impact Evaluation, MCC Lesotho – Land Administration Reform, and Study on Aid Effectiveness in the Infrastructure Sector. In addition to his project support responsibilities, Mr. Clabaugh coordinates Center communications and assists in the preparation of cost and technical proposals. His principal areas of interest are civic engagement, institutional development, and democratic local governance. Prior to joining UI, he worked on forest and land tenure reform for Rights and Resources Group (RRG) in Washington, DC and on USAID’s Health Systems 20/20 project for Abt Associates in Bethesda, MD. Mr. Clabaugh holds a BA in International Affairs and Political Science from The George Washington University.
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Sharon Cooley – Senior Research Associate
Sharon Cooley has over 15 years’ experience as a project manager, subject matter expert, and practitioner for local government and community capacity building programs in East Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, and the United States. Ms. Cooley’s technical expertise encompasses participatory strategic planning, performance management, and budgeting and capital investment programming. She also works extensively on overall decentralization reform, institutional and organizational development, democratic governance and anti-corruption strategies, civil society and citizen participation, and policy analysis. Ms. Cooley’s recent technical assistance work has been focused on building credible partnerships between various levels of government and civil society in Albania, Russia, and Tajikistan through inclusive and results-oriented development/budgetary planning and service improvement activity. Ms. Cooley is also an accomplished researcher, deploying a range of interpretive and statistical methodologies in performing analyses and recommendations for institutional performance improvement. As part of a USAID project in Albania, she oversaw the Albanian National Local Government Survey (and ten individual municipal surveys) that produced baseline indicators on local government service delivery performance and citizen perception of trust, corruption, and local government accountability, including analysis and presentation of results to national and local stakeholders. Ms. Cooley has also garnered significant first-hand government experience as a member of the Executive Leadership Team for a US municipality (Riverside, CA, pop. 300,000) where she was tasked with implementing far-reaching strategic management, organizational development strategies – including a High Performance Organization model – and transformation of the city’s annual operating budget into a performance-based budget.
Areas of Expertise: Performance management; democratic local governance; strategic planning; budgeting and capital improvement planning; civic engagement; and organizational and institutional development
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Francis Conway – Senior Research Associate
Mr. Conway, a Senior Associate at the Urban Institute since 1994, has more than 30 years of experience with urban planning; fiscal decentralization policy analysis and reform; and local finance in developing and transitioning countries. He has conducted research on local government and directed support for decentralization reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia), Newly Independent States (NIS) – Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine – Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), and Asia (Cambodia and Pakistan). Currently he is engaged in UI local government programs in Cambodia, Honduras, and Pakistan. Much of his work has focused on identifying and implementing lasting mechanisms to finance and improve basic services in urban areas, with emphasis on efforts to extend such services to poor urban households.
Areas of Expertise: Fiscal decentralization; intergovernmental finance; local tax and fee administration; water sector decentralization; capital and performance-based budgeting; municipal credit financing; and urban growth management and planning
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Kyle Engelman – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Ms. Engelman, a Research Assistant/Project Coordinator at the Urban Institute since June 2008, has more than a year of experience working in the international sector. She is responsible for managing and conducting extensive research for several of the Urban Institute’s projects including Indonesia Control of Corruption, China Mortgage Lending, Cambodia Support for Formulation of the National Program for Sub-national Democratic Development, and Kazakhstan Policy Dialogue. She is also involved in proposal development at UI. Prior to joining UI, Ms. Engelman served as the Student Director for the Tucker Foundation of Service Learning and Ethical Leadership at Dartmouth College. She also served on an Assessment Committee at Dartmouth in which capacity she helped to formulate an international program in Latin America focused on community development, public health, and educational and cultural exchange. In 2007, Ms. Engelman received a grant to conduct fieldwork in healthcare and youth development in Peru. She earned her BA in Human Biology from Dartmouth College, where her coursework also encompassed the fields of Latin American Studies, Anthropology, and Healthcare Policy and Practice.
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Kathleen Gaertner – Research Associate
Ms. Gaertner is a Research Associate with five years of experience currently assisting with proposal development. She recently served as a long-term resident advisor for the MCC-sponsored Indonesia Control of Corruption Project, where she worked with Indonesia’s Supreme Court to improve the management and internal controls for the protection of state assets. Previously, Ms. Gaertner coordinated and provided research support for field offices in Central and Eastern Europe implementing over $47 million worth of USAID, MCC, and US Department of State projects focusing on economic development, housing assistance, and civil society. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, she worked as a Securities Analyst for Wells Fargo Corporate Trust. Ms. Gaertner earned a BA in Business Administration from Furman University and iscurrently pursuing an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, expected 2010.
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Andrew Golda – Research Associate
Mr. Golda is a mid-level municipal service improvement and monitoring and evaluation specialist with specific expertise in survey design, the design and management of technical assistance to support decentralization, and the implementation of humanitarian assistance programming. He has worked in Armenia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Mr. Golda served as Chief of Party of the Georgia IDP Housing Voucher program which provided durable shelter to IDP families displaced by Georgia’s civil conflicts. Currently Mr. Golda is working in Pakistan to improve municipal service delivery in 30 local governments as well as developing a survey of citizen opinions about the form and functions of local government. He holds an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
Areas of Expertise: Survey design; municipal service improvement; humanitarian assistance programming; conflict mitigation; and local governments
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Priya Jindal – Research Associate/Project Coordinator
Since joining the Urban Institute in July 2008, Priya Jindal has worked on the $26-million Districts That Work project in Pakistan. She is responsible for data analysis, coordination with project field staff and consultants, budget preparation and monitoring, reviewing expenditures and cost forecasts, preparing financial reports, coordinating contractual issues, proposal writing, and preparation of deliverables. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Jindal held positions with the State of Ohio lobbying for executive agencies and NGOs and drafting bills. She also has experience with grassroots international development in India. Ms. Jindal earned her BA in Political Science and International Studies from The Ohio State University.
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Olga Kaganova – Senior Research Associate
Dr. Kaganova is an internationally recognized expert on public asset management, which includes specific expertise in land management and public-private partnerships. She has also worked on land and property market reforms in countries with emerging markets. She has worked in Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Indonesia, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine on projects funded by the World Bank, USAID, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Dr. Kaganova also has experience in needs assessment, surveys, real estate market and feasibility studies, property appraisal, financial analysis of investment projects, and the introduction of property taxation (both ad valorem and non-ad valorem). She has published widely on real estate issues, including the book Managing Government Property Assets: International Experiences (UI Press, 2006). Her teaching experience includes visiting lectures and seminars at Johns Hopkins University, Penn State University, and Central European University (Budapest) – among other distinguished universities – and design and delivery of numerous executive training courses for audiences ranging from World Bank staff to local governments and real estate professionals in various countries. Prior to joining UI, Dr. Kaganova was a founding partner in AUREC, a private real estate consulting company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Kaganova holds the following international professional designations: Counselor of Real Estate (CRE) and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).
Areas of Expertise: Land policy and land management; management of government property assets; public-private partnerships; and real estate
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Deborah Kimble – Senior Research Associate
Deborah Kimble has 25 years of experience in local government issues, including work as a local government official in the United States and as a technical advisor in more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. She specializes in the issues of governance – specifically, the structure and performance of local government – as they relate to economic growth, poverty reduction, and the democratic process. She has served as a principal advisor on USAID/USAEP projects on community-based economic development and local government in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand as well as throughout the former Soviet Union and Southern Africa. In September 2008, Ms. Kimble took up residence in Cambodia where she will lead a UI project on sub-national democratic development.
Areas of Expertise: Local government management and governance; local economic development; human resource development; and citizen engagement
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Katharine Mark – Senior Research Associate
Ms. Mark has almost 20 years of international experience in performance management, local governance, and urban issues. Ms. Mark recently directed a decentralization project in Ethiopia working with regional and local governments to build capacity in a range of key areas. She designed and led efforts in Honduras and Albania to help local governments incorporate performance management – and citizen feedback – into their budgeting, decision-making, and resource allocation to improve service delivery and responsiveness to citizens. Ms. Mark has designed and carried out citizen surveys on government services in several countries, including a recent survey in Ethiopia on financial transparency and accountability of local governments. In Benin she is carrying out an impact evaluation of MCA projects in access to land and access to financial services for micro, small, and medium enterprises. Ms. Mark has provided training and technical assistance to staff of several multilateral donors (IADB, World Bank, and UN-Habitat) on monitoring project outcomes. She has worked in Colombia and in Peru to help introduce performance-based budgeting and governing for results at both the national and the local levels. She has helped develop a number of manuals and guides to help local governments use performance management. Ms. Mark helped develop materials for state legislators and local elected officials in the United States to encourage the use of outcome information in decision-making and oversight. Ms. Mark directed the USAID housing and municipal technical assistance program in Hungary between 1992 and 1999, covering such areas as local government finance, infrastructure finance, municipal management, and housing policy.
Areas of Expertise: Performance management and measurement; local governance; and urban policy and management
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Sally R. Merrill – Principal Research Associate
Sally Merrill is an economist specializing in housing finance, housing and urban policy, and housing microfinance. Since 1987, she has focused on international development of systems of housing finance, policy reform in housing and housing finance, capital market funding, and low-income housing and infrastructure schemes. She has worked in this context throughout Asia (in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka); in the Central Asian republics and Central and Eastern Europe (Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia); in North Africa (Algeria and Egypt); and in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) and in Jamaica. Prior to this, Dr. Merrill addressed US housing and welfare analysis and has worked extensively with public housing and housing vouchers programs on topics such as housing demand, subsidy policies, low-income housing quality, and affordability and discrimination patterns. Ms. Merrill has published widely on housing finance and microfinance, mortgage lending and insurance, housing finance in developing-market contexts, as well as other topics. Ms. Merrill has also worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Areas of Expertise: Housing finance; housing and urban policy; housing microfinance; and low-income housing
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David Miller – Senior Associate for International Finance and Operations
David Miller has more than 20 years of professional management experience, including 15 years in international development. He joined the Urban Institute in 2007 as IDG’s Senior Associate for International Finance and Operations. In this position, Mr. Miller provides operational and financial oversight and support to IDG’s contract portfolio and field site operations. As business manager, he is responsible for coordinating the Center’s strategic and business planning process, as well as providing organizational leadership in areas such as management and financial procedures, cost proposal oversight, project risk mitigation, and departmental coordination on international management issues.
Before joining UI, Mr. Miller spent 14 years with Abt Associates, Inc. During his tenure at Abt, he served in a variety of project management roles, which included seven years of field operations work in Central Asia and Egypt. His last assignment for the organization was Associate Division Manager of Abt’s International Health Division where he provided operational and financial oversight and support to a large portfolio of international health projects. Mr. Miller also has several years of commercial banking and small business development experience. He holds two masters degrees – an MBA from James Madison University and a Masters in International Management from The American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird).
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Gretchen Mikeska – Senior Research Associate
Ms. Mikeska is a licensed Civil and Environmental Engineer with over 17 years’ experience managing and delivering technical assistance for large-scale, international development projects in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the former Soviet Union, Asia, Latin America, the Near East, and North America. Since joining the Urban Institute in 1999, Ms. Mikeska has served as a Resident Advisor in Montenegro and has provided technical assistance and training related to building the capacity of municipalities to deliver communal services and assisting them to define and prioritize their investment needs and financing options throughout CEE and the former Soviet Union (Albania, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine, and Tajikistan) as well as in Indonesia. She has also worked extensively with local NGOs, local citizens, and industrial enterprises to establish Pollution Prevention Centers using focus groups to identify facilities and processes that are good candidates for introducing waste minimization practices. Earlier, she designed water/wastewater treatment facilities for a number of small communities and supervised their construction. Ms. Mikeska holds an MS in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA in International Finance from Northeastern University. She is a registered professional engineer.
Areas of Expertise: Utility performance improvement and benchmarking; strategic and business planning; budgeting and capital planning; local government capacity building; and infrastructure issues
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Emily Mytkowicz – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Emily Mytkowicz joined the Urban Institute as a Research Assistant/Project Coordinator in October 2007. Ms. Mytkowicz provides contractual, technical, and logistical support to the home office – as well as the Center’s field offices – for local government accountability and citizen participation programs. She is the Project Coordinator for the Greater Transparency and Accountability in Government program in Honduras and the Local Government and Citizen Participation program in Tajikistan. She also conducts research on development sector trends and future business opportunities and contributes to the writing and preparation of cost and technical proposals. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Mytkowicz earned a BA in International Studies from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked as an intern with a local microfinance institution in Juliaca, Peru.
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Ritu Nayyar-Stone – Senior Research Associate
Dr. Nayyar-Stone is an economist specializing in intergovernmental finance, fiscal decentralization, and strategic municipal financial management with over 15 years of experience working with national, state, and local governments. Since joining the Urban Institute in 1995, Dr. Nayyar-Stone has worked on issues related to public finance, performance management, and infrastructure finance with government officials in Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Romania, and Russia. She has trained project managers in donor organizations – including both The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – on outcome monitoring to track aid effectiveness. Dr. Nayyar-Stone has prepared guidelines on implementing performance management to improve local service delivery for The World Bank, UN-Habitat, and UNDP, and trained government officials on implementing performance management systems to improve service delivery. She has worked with state and local governments on implementing budget reform, and program budgets in the health and education sector. For KfW, Dr. Nayyar-Stone conducted a pre-feasibility study on municipal lending to finance urban infrastructure in Pakistan and India. She has also examined the application of the Paris Declaration tenets (ownership, alignment, harmonization, accountability, and managing for results) on aid effectiveness in the infrastructure sector.
Areas of Expertise: Budgeting and improved public administration (performance and strategic management); monitoring and evaluation; infrastructure finance; data collection and analysis; and baseline assessments
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Leslie Parker – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Since joining the Urban Institute in June 2008, Leslie Parker has worked on the $26-million Districts That Work project in Pakistan. She is responsible for data analysis, coordination with project field staff and consultants, budget preparation and monitoring, reviewing expenditures and cost forecasts, preparing financial reports, coordinating contractual issues, proposal writing, and preparation of deliverables. Prior to joining UI, Ms. Parker worked for an environmental NGO, where she served as an outreach and development intern. She also previously held a position as a lobbying intern for a London-based international environmental network. Ms. Parker graduated from the Institute of Political Science in Aix-en-Provence, France where she majored in Comparative Politics and Latin American Studies. She is particularly interested in the comparative study of the welfare state and its place in the global economy, issues she examined while studying for a year in New Zealand.
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Juliana Pigey – Senior Research Associate
Ms. Pigey, a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute since 1999 (and a consultant to UI for 6 years previous), has 18 years of international experience in local government financial and policy analysis; training; municipal infrastructure and utility budgeting, accounting, and reporting; intergovernmental fiscal reform; local government policy reform; and local government administration. Ms. Pigey has prepared baseline studies of local government finance systems; assisted local governments with improving capital planning, budgeting, and forecasting practices; identified municipal investment needs; and assisted in reforming local budget frameworks and charts of accounts. She has also proposed reform programs to increase local fiscal autonomy, analyzed legal and financial frameworks for the development of municipal credit markets, and provided policy analysis and assistance in legislative development. Ms. Pigey has worked directly with local governments in France on fiscal and budgetary analysis, budget forecasting, investment finance, and debt management. Countries in which Ms. Pigey has work experience include: Albania, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Croatia, France, Georgia, Hungary, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mali, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Vietnam.
Areas of Expertise: Decentralization (e.g. decentralization strategies and reform processes, legislative review and reform, intergovernmental finance systems); local governance; and municipal services (e.g. municipal finance and budget management, infrastructure finance and municipal debt issues, municipal service finances and management)
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Sarah Polen – Research Associate
Ms. Polen, a Research Associate with the Urban Institute since 2000, has more than nine years of international experience. Currently, Ms. Polen is based in Washington, where she provides technical and logistical support for the Urban Institute’s international projects in local government reform, performance management/municipal service improvement, and housing for IDPs and refugees. She has been a resident advisor in both Georgia and Armenia. In Georgia, she supported start-up for the first year of USAID’s $10-million Communities Empowered for Local Decision-Making (CELD) Project, which provides technical assistance for decentralization and local government capacity building. From July 2000 to June 2002, she worked in the Urban Institute’s Armenia Earthquake Zone office, first on USAID’s pilot housing program and then as Component Manager for the expanded Earthquake Zone Recovery Program. In Armenia, Ms. Polen’s responsibilities involved managing relationships with local and central government partners, local NGOs and banks, and earthquake-displaced households receiving housing certificates as well as liaising with USAID. Ms. Polen holds an MBA in International Business and an MA in International Affairs/Economic and Political Development from Columbia University.
Carol Rabenhorst – Senior Research Associate
Carol Rabenhorst is an internationally-recognized senior legal expert in real estate law, property rights, and mortgage finance. She has worked in 25 developing and transitioning economies in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa, and Southern Asia to reform the legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks relating to the establishment and improvement of property rights, registration systems, and real estate markets in these various country contexts. She has frequently served as legal component leader for assessment of conditions in relevant sectors and for development and implementation of recommendations for long-term interventions, including drafting or amending laws, regulations, institutional arrangements, and mortgage lending procedures and documentation. Ms. Rabenhorst is Program Lead for the Finance and Housing Program within the Center on International Development and Governance at the Urban Institute, and as such is responsible for managing and providing technical input for numerous projects within those sectors. Prior to her international work for the Urban Institute, Ms. Rabenhorst was engaged in the private practice of law for 14 years. A partner in a Washington, DC law firm, she specialized in real estate law and commercial and residential property development.
Areas of expertise: International mortgage law and regulation; property registration; property rights; and municipal property management
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Stephanie Rennane – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Stephanie Rennane has contributed to a variety of projects since her arrival at the Urban Institute in July 2008. As one of her main responsibilities, Ms. Rennane serves as Project Coordinator for the Decentralization and Local Government Program in Kyrgyzstan. In this role, she is responsible for daily support and communication with field staff in Bishkek, managing budgets and expenditures, negotiating contractual issues, and preparing various financial reports. Ms. Rennane has also conducted analysis on survey data and presented findings from the Ethiopia FTAPS project. Her more general responsibilities include proposal writing and editing, drafting budgets, conducting background research, and data analysis. Prior to joining UI, Ms. Rennane worked as an intern at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France and as a research assistant for Professor Brian Jacob at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. Ms. Rennane holds a BA in Economics and French from the University of Michigan.
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Jessica Stretz – International Project Administrator
Jessica Stretz, an International Project Administrator who has been with the Urban Institute since 2004, provides technical, financial, and contractual support for IDG’s international projects. Ms. Stretz oversees the procurement and ongoing monitoring of project subcontracts, grants, other services, and equipment. Her financial management responsibilities include the preparation and monitoring of project budgets, financial reports, and project cost forecasts. She assists with project startup, closeout, and other short-term field assignments. Ms. Stretz is also responsible for preparing and reviewing all cost proposals and ensuring compliance with cost requirements. In addition, she provides oversight and training to Research Assistants working in IDG. Ms. Stretz earned a BA in Economics and Spanish from the University of Kansas.
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Leigh Thompson – International Project Administrator
Leigh Thompson, an International Project Administrator who has been with the Urban Institute since 2007, provides technical, financial, and contractual support for IDG’s international projects. She also assists with project startup, closeout, and other short-term field assignments. Ms. Thompson conducts research and data analysis for projects and proposals primarily related to economic development and local governance. She oversees the procurement and ongoing monitoring of project subcontracts, grants, other services, and equipment. Her financial management responsibilities include the preparation and monitoring of project budgets, expense reports, accruals, regular financial reports on project expenditures, and project cost forecasts. Ms. Thompson is also responsible for preparing and reviewing cost proposal budgets and ensuring compliance with cost proposal requirements. In addition, she provides oversight and training to Research Assistants working in IDG. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Thompson worked for Transparency International-USA in Washington DC, where she gained extensive knowledge about anti-corruption initiatives in international law, development assistance, and the private sector. Ms. Thompson earned a BA in International Relations from Lehigh University, where she graduated with highest honors and as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Ms. Thompson is currently pursuing an MA in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University, expected 2009.
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Karla Vayanis – Research Assistant/Project Coordinator
Karla Vayanis joined the Urban Institute's Center on International Development and Governance in June 2008 as a Research Assistant/Project Coordinator. At IDG, Ms. Vayanis helps manage and conduct extensive research on several of the Urban Institute's projects: Turkmenistan Community Empowerment Project, Montenegro Sustainable Tourism Development Project, and the MCA Honduras Impact Evaluation. Her duties also include data analysis, coordination with project field staff and consultants, budget preparation and monitoring, reviewing expenditures and cost forecasts, preparing financial reports, coordinating contractual issues, writing proposals, and preparation of deliverables. Prior to joining the Urban Institute, Ms. Vayanis worked for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in Washington, DC. Ms. Vayanis received a BA from the University of Maryland, College Park in Government & Politics and Economics, with an emphasis on international relations, and a Certificate in Multi-Track Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation. She speaks English and Spanish fluently.
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