Advisory Committee Members

Frank S. Alexander

Frank S. Alexander is Interim Dean and Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, where he also serves as Director of the Project on Affordable Housing and Community Development and Co-Director of the Law and Religion Program.  At Emory his courses include Property, Real Estate Sales and Finance, State and Local Government Law, Law and Theology, and Federal Housing Policies and Homelessness. He is the author or editor of four books and over thirty articles in real estate finance, law and theology, and community redevelopment.

Founder of Emory University's Law and Religion Program in 1982, Professor Alexander's work in recent years has focused on homelessness and affordable housing. He served as a Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University from 1993-96, and as a Commissioner of the State Housing Trust Fund for the Homeless from 1994-1998.

Professor Alexander received both a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 1978, and holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina.

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Charles Bartsch

Charlie Bartsch is Vice President for Social Programs and Strategic Communications at ICF International, where he serves as ICF's brownfield and smart growth expert.    Formerly, he was Director of Brownfield Studies at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, based in Washington, D.C.

Over the past fifteen years, he has written numerous reports and other publications on various brownfield financing and reuse issues and strategies, including the pioneering Coming Clean for Economic Development; New Life for Old Buildings; Coping with Contamination: Industrial Site Reuse and Urban Redevelopment; and two annual reference resources, Brownfields "State of the States" and the Guide to Federal Brownfield Programs.  He most recently co-authored Financing Strategies for Brownfield Cleanup and Redevelopment and Recycling America's Gas Stations.  Charlie often testifies before Congress on issues of economic development, most recently on HUD brownfield financing innovations and brownfield tax incentives.  In addition, Charlie has advised the Chicago Brownfields Forum, helped to develop the "Nuts & Bolts of Brownfields" training, and has worked with the NJIT Brownfields Team in EPA Region 2 to provide technical assistance information to grantee cities.  He is chair of the National Brownfield Association's Advisory Board, and he received the International Economic Development Council's 2001 Chairman's Award for Outstanding Service for his ten years of work on brownfield policies and legislation.

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Lavea Brachman

Lavea Brachman teaches, researches and advises on brownfields and vacant property redevelopment issues in communities around the country.  In 2004-5, Ms. Brachman has been in Cambridge, MA as a Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and a Visiting Professor in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  At the Lincoln Institute, she iscurrently working on a guidebook on brownfield redevelopment for community-based organizations and researching the role of local policies and practices in property redevelopment.  She has also written and published articles on community-based organization roles in brownfields redevelopment, and about the barriers to brownfield redevelopment.  In Ohio, she is Director of the Delta Institute Ohio, a Chicago-based non-profit organization working to improve environmental quality and promote community and economic development in the Great Lakes region, where she

has worked with governments and communities on environmental, land and community revitalization issues.  During the years 1993-94 and 1996-98, Ms. Brachman worked with and was a partner with a Cambridge-based brownfields redevelopment firm, consulting to Fortune 500 companies. In Washington, D.C., Ms. Brachman practiced environmental law with a private firm and served as senior staff in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management working on community involvement and land reuse issues arising from decommissioned DOE sites.

Ms. Brachman holds a law degree from The University of Chicago Law School and a master’s in city planning from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College.

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Paul Brophy

Paul C. Brophy is a principal with Brophy & Reilly LLC, a Maryland-based consulting firm specializing in housing, community development, and the management of complex urban redevelopment projects. From 1988-1993, Mr. Brophy was president and then vice chair and co-CEO of the Enterprise Foundation. From 1977-1986, Mr. Brophy held positions in the City of Pittsburgh government, first as Director of the Housing Department and then as Executive Director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority where he was responsible for downtown and neighborhood revitalization, and economic development.

Mr. Brophy’s practice centers on the creation and implementation of strategies to improve the health of central cities.  In 1997 Mr. Brophy directed a project for the Bank of America-sponsored American Assembly that resulted in a widely read report, Community Capitalism: Rediscovering the Markets of America’s Urban Neighborhoods.  He has also been a senior advisor on the Bank’s innovative America—Block by Block program.

Mr. Brophy has held adjunct teaching positions at the School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon University, the Graduate School of Public, International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh, and at the School of Public Affairs, the University of Maryland, and is currently a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of City Planning. Mr. Brophy has co-authored three books, A Guide to Careers in Community Development, (2000), Housing and Local Government (1982) and Neighborhood Revitalization: Theory and Practice (1975), as well as numerous articles in professional journals.  Mr. Brophy holds a BA from LaSalle University and a Masters in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Kim Burnett

Kim Burnett is a Program Officer for Community Revitalization with the Surdna Foundation where she co-manages a national portfolio of $5.7 million. For the last several years Ms. Burnett has played a leadership role in building awareness of the unique challenges and opportunities for Weak Market Cities. Along with Paul Brophy she co-authored, “Developing a New Framework for Community Development in Weak Market Cites” which has laid the ground work for a more market-savvy approach to community revitalization efforts in cities and regions that have been losing population for the last several decades.

Prior to joining Surdna, Ms. Burnett was the founding Executive Director for the Community Development Partnerships’ Network – a national peer-learning network for funder collaboratives investing in community revitalization efforts. Previous to that, she worked as a Program Manager for REACH CDC, where she received the Governor’s Commendation for Community Collaboration for the revitalization of a low-income commercial district in Portland, OR. In the for-profit arena, Ms. Burnett has served as a Systems Analyst for Cisco Systems and as Director of Stores for a national retail chain.

Ms. Burnett earned a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University, a bachelor’s degree in Politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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Carol Coletta

Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City (www.smartcityradio.com). Carol is a passionate advocate for cities, and she has devoted her life to answering the question: What makes cities succeed?  Through her weekly conversations with urban leaders and thinkers on Smart City, her research and consulting, and now as leader of CEOs for Cities, she continues her ongoing quest for the answers.

Before moving to Chicago to head CEOs for Cities, she served as president of Coletta & Company in Memphis. In addition, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.

Among her accomplishments, Carol hosted The Vine, a three-day gathering of internationally recognized speakers for the Pacific Coast Builders Conference; she created and hosted the Memphis Manifesto Summit with Richard Florida, the first gathering of the creative class to write their call to action for cities; she conceived and wrote the Talent Magnet Report, the first city blueprint aimed at attracting and retaining the creative class; and she co-authored Cultural Development in Creative Communities for Americans for the Arts.

Carol was a Knight Fellow in Community Building for 2003 at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Her paper on the Future of Cities, produced for the University of Houston Clear Lake’s Future Studies program, was selected for presentation to the World Future Society annual meeting.  She is currently a candidate for a Master of Design Methods at the Institute of Design at IIT.  She is frequently interviewed as an expert on urban issues by national media and is an active speaker on the success formula for cities and creative communities.

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Carlton Eley

Carlton Eley works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation in Washington, DC.  As a staff member of the Development, Community, and Environment Division, which manages the Smart Growth program, he provides communities and stakeholders with the necessary tools, research, and policy that will assist them in pursuing development options that are good for the environment, community, and economy. In this capacity, Mr. Eley’s focal areas include: smart growth construction practices; reuse and revitalization of vacant and abandoned properties; and land development regulations.  Mr. Eley started his career with EPA as an environmental protection specialist for the Region7 Office in Kansas City, KS.

Mr. Eley has a BA in Sociology/Social Work Curriculum from Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) as well as a MS in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Iowa.  In 2003, he participated in the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowship in Public Policy.  The six-month fellowship presented him with the opportunity to learn about New Zealand approaches to achieve smart growth objectives.  He was based with the Ministry for the Environment, and he contributed to the development of New Zealand’s Urban Design Protocol.

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Dan Emerine

Dan Emerine is the Project Manager for the Smart Growth Programs of the International City/County Management Association. He is the editor of Getting Smart!, the bimonthly newsletter of the Smart Growth Network, which publishes case studies, articles, and resources related to smart growth topics. Dan has organized and assisted in the facilitation of trainings, workshops, and conference sessions related to smart growth and community development, including regional forums on reforming land development regulations and revitalizing vacant properties.

Before joining ICMA, Dan worked as a research assistant for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a joint effort of over 40 organizations advocating smart growth in the Metropolitan Washington area. Dan is a member of the Congress for the New Urbanism and the American Planning Association. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Denison University, and is currently studying at the University of Maryland as a candidate for a master’s in public management.

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Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD

Dr. Mindy Fullilove is a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University.  She was educated at Bryn Mawr College (AB, 1971) and Columbia University (MS, 1971; MD 1978).  She is a board certified psychiatrist, having received her training at New York Hospital-Westchester Division (1978-1981) and Montefiore Hospital (1981-1982).  She has conducted research AIDS and other epidemics of poor communities, with a special interest in the relationship between the collapse of communities and decline in health.  From her research, she has published Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, and The House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place.  She has also published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs.  She has received many awards including being named a “National Associate” by the National Academy of Science in 2003, being among the “Best Doctors in New York,” and receiving two honorary doctorates (Chatham College, 1999, and Bank Street College of Education, 2002).  Her work in AIDS is featured in Jacob Levenson’s book, The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS in Black America. 

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Peter Harnik

Peter Harnik is the director of The Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence. Mr. Harnik has had a 30-year career in conservation advocacy and environmental protection, including co-founding the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. He has worked to create parks and trails at both the national and local levels and is a nationally recognized expert on city parks. Harnik is the author of numerous publications, including The Excellent City Park System: What Makes it Great and How to Get There and Inside City Parks. 

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John Kromer

John Kromer is Senior Consultant at the Fels Institute, a position he accepted in 2001 after completing ten years of service as the City of Philadelphia’s Director of Housing. His recent activities at the Fels Institute have included coordinating a West Philadelphia neighborhood investment program sponsored by Citizens Bank; assisting in the reorganization of the City of Camden’s development agencies; and publishing data and commentary on community development policymaking and programming in thirty cities.

Mr. Kromer’s book, Neighborhood Recovery: Reinvestment Policy for the New Hometown (Rutgers University Press, 2000), termed “a primer on how to revitalize an American city” by former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, is now in its second printing. Vacant Property Policy and Practice: Baltimore and Philadelphia, a Brookings Institution discussion paper authored by Mr. Kromer, was published in October 2002.

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Alan Mallach

Allan Mallach is the research director of the National Housing Institute in Montclair, New Jersey, where he is currently engaged in work on vacant property re-use, rental housing preservation, neighborhood revitalization, and housing policy.  From 1990 through 1999, he was Director of the Department of Housing and Development for the city of Trenton, New Jersey’s state capital.  He serves on the boards of a number of organizations including the Housing & Community development Network of New Jersey, and Preservation New Jersey, and has taught at many universities, most recently as a visiting lecturer in the graduate urban planning program at Rutgers University.   He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and is the author of Inclusionary Housing Programs: Policies and Practices and many other works on planning and housing issues.   He holds a B.A. degree from Yale University.

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Vernice Miller-Travis

Vernice Miller-Travis is executive director of Groundwork USA, a network of independent nonprofit environmental organizations that help communities use their assets to eliminate environmental poverty and become vibrant, healthier, and safer places to live.  As a former program officer of the Ford Foundation, she launched that institution’s environmental justice portfolio in the United States. She was director of the Environmental Justice Initiative at the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1993 until 1999, served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council from 1996 until 2001, and is co-founder of the West Harlem Environmental Action, a 17-year-old community-based environmental justice organization in New York City.  The National Black Environmental Justice Network is a preventative health, environmental, and economic justice network with affiliates in 33 states and the District of Columbia. Members include some of the nation’s leading African-American grassroots environmental justice activists, community organizers, academics, researchers, lawyers, public health specialists, technical experts, and authors addressing the intersection of public health, environmental hazards, and economic development within Black communities.

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Joseph R. Molinaro, AICP

Joseph R. Molinaro is the Manager of Smart Growth Programs for the National Association of REALTORS® in Washington, DC.  In this capacity, he manages NAR’s Smart Growth efforts, which include REALTOR® training, technical assistance on land use regulation to state and local REALTOR® associations, voter surveys on growth issues, research, and publication of the On Common Ground magazine.  He also provides support to NAR’s Smart Growth federal legislative agenda. 

Prior to joining NAR in 2000, Mr. Molinaro was Director of Land Development Services for the National Association of Home Builders.  In this position, he introduced New Urbanism to the educational programs for builders, and organized conferences and tours of New Urbanism projects in several cities.  He also was editor of Land Development magazine.

He holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

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Rachel Morello-Frosch

Rachel Morello-Frosch is an assistant professor at the Center for Environmental Studies and the Department of Community Health, School of Medicine. She completed her bachelor's degree in development economics, a master of public health degree in epidemiology and biostatistics, and her Ph.D. in environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley. She teaches courses on environmental health and policy and a seminar on the science and political economy of environmental health and justice.

Ms. Morello-Frosch’s research examines race and class determinants of the distribution of health risks associated with air pollution among diverse communities in the United States. Her current work focuses on: comparative risk assessment and environmental justice, developing models for community-based environmental health research, science and environmental health policy-making, children's environmental health, and the intersection between economic restructuring and environmental health. With colleagues in Southern California, she is currently working on a 4-year community-academic research partnership with Communities for a Better Environment in Los Angeles on "Air Pollution, Toxics and Environmental Justice." Rachel is also collaborating with scientists at US EPA on research on children's health and air toxics, and recently completed a project with the Center for Third World Organizing in Oakland California on transportation justice, access to health care, and food security.

She co-chairs the board of trustees of the Environmental Leadership Program, a national non-profit center for leadership and professional development within the environmental field (www.elpnet.org) and sits on the scientific advisory board of Breast Cancer Action in San Francisco (www.bcaction.org).

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Evans Paull

Northeast Midwest Institute

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john a. powell

Professor john a. powell is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, and issues relating to race, ethnicity, poverty and the law.  He is the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University.  He also holds the Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law.  He has written extensively on a number of issues including racial justice and regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, the link between housing and school segregation, opportunity based housing, gentrification, disparities in the criminal justice system, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, and racial and ethnic identity and the current demographic shift

Previously, Professor powell founded and directed the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota.  He also served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory.  Prior to that he served as the Director of Legal Services of Greater Miami.  He has worked and lived in Africa, where he was a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa.  He has also lived and worked in India and done work in South America and Europe.  He is one of the co-founders of Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national organizations.  Professor powell has taught at Columbia University School of Law, Harvard Law School, University of Miami School of Law, American University, the University of San Francisco School of Law, and the University of Minnesota Law.  He joined the faculty at OSU in 2002.

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Carey Shea

Carey Shea is currently serving as a Program Officer for the Rockefeller Foundation in New Orleans.  She was previously the Chief Operating Officer and Acting Director of Real Estate and Construction at Habitat for Humanity-NYC. She arrived at Habitat after working at the Surdna Foundation where she was the Director of Community Revitalization grant-making where she distributed over $6 million annually to community development nonprofits in cities across America. The Surdna Community Revitalization Program was instrumental in highlighting the unique characteristics of weak market cities and the problems associated with vacant and blighted properties. Prior to working at Surdna, Ms. Shea was the Director of the Community Building Initiative, a national program to support CDC efforts in community organizing and planning, at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

Ms. Shea launched her community development career in Brooklyn where she packaged loans and development deals for the East Brooklyn Industrial Park and, in the early 90s, launched the East New York Urban Youth Corps, a housing development and youth services organization. In the 80's she led a sweat-equity project through the Urban Homesteading program on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

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Diane Silva-Martinez

Diane Silva-Martinez received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles and her Juris Doctorate from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. Upon graduating from law school in 1984,  she immediately began her career as a prosecutor with the San Diego City Attorney’s Office.  She has dedicated the past twenty years to prosecuting a variety of land-use laws both criminally and civilly.

Ms. Silva-Martinez heads the City Attorney’s Code Enforcement Unit which works in partnership with code enforcement inspectors, police, Council Offices and community groups to resolve violations ranging from public nuisances and substandard housing to the destruction of environmentally sensitive land.  San Diego’s Code Enforcement Unit has a nationwide reputation for its proactive approach to code enforcement and addressing issues such as blight, vacant properties and public nuisances. 

Ms. Silva-Martinez  has been instrumental in developing many of San Diego’s innovative approaches to code enforcement and community prosecution. She has authored many of San Diego’s enforcement ordinances and made presentations at numerous statewide and national conferences on the subject of code enforcement.  She presently supervises a staff of four attorneys, two investigators, and  four support staff. 

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Rhonda Sincavage

Rhonda Sincavage is Program Associate for State and Local Policy at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  As Program Associate, she researches and tracks preservation policy at the state and local level and provides assistance for building statewide advocacy networks.  In addition to her work at the National Trust, Ms. Sincavage is instructor for the “Issues in Preservation” course for the Historic Preservation Certificate Program at Goucher College.  Prior to employment at the National Trust, she was Vice President of Preservation Action, the national grassroots lobbying organization for historic preservation. 

Ms. Sincavage has served as an ex-officio member of the Board of Trustees of US/ICOMOS, a volunteer for the Design Apprenticeship Program at the National Building Museum, and is an active member of the Education Committee of the DC Preservation League.  In 2005 Ms. Sincavage was selected to participate in the Courants Cultural Exchange Program sponsored by the French-American Foundation and the French Ministry of Culture. 

Ms. Sincavage holds a Bachelor of Science in Design and Environmental Analysis from Cornell University and a Masters in Urban and Environmental Planning and Certificate in Historic Preservation from University of Virginia. 

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Jeffrey L. Soule, FAICP

Jeff Soule has held a number of planning and policy positions in government and the non-profit sector:  Senior Planner for the Tug Hill Commission, Policy Coordinator for the US Department of Agriculture, Program Administrator/ Director, National Endowment for the Arts Design Program, Director of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.

Mr. Soule became Policy Director of the American Planning Association in 1996 where he manages Government Affairs, Public Information and Policy for the Associations’ 37,000 members. There he has expanded partnerships with other organizations and improved legislative services to APA’s chapters. In 1997 he launched an initiative with the Chinese government to provide long-term technical assistance through exchanges and special projects. He produced an innovative urban design approach and plan for a large site in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area. As special advisor to the Mayor of Nanjing he developed a strategy for preserving and revitalizing the city’s historic neighborhoods. Mr. Soule is APA’s representative to the Government of China and is serving as advisor to Jiangsu Party Secretary Li Yuan Ciao. He has also lead efforts to conserve natural resources while providing economic opportunities for rural areas. He co-developed a comprehensive training course for China under the auspices of the World Bank.

Mr. Soule is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, FAICP. Jeff received a BA degree, with honors, from Colgate University in Natural Science, and Masters Degrees from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and Kennedy School of Government.

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Jennifer S. Vey

Jennifer S. Vey is a senior research associate at Brookings Institution’s Center on Urban & Metropolitan Policy whose work primarily focuses on the competitiveness and quality of life of central cities and regions in the new economy. She has co-authored several Brookings publications, including "Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania," "Demographic Change in Medium-Sized Cities: Evidence from the 2000 Census" and "Seizing City Assets: Ten Steps to Urban Land Reform." Prior to joining Brookings in June, 2001, Ms. Vey was a Community Planning and Development Specialist at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she assisted urban Empowerment Zones in implementing their strategic plans. She earned a Master of Planning degree from the University of Virginia in 1997, and holds a B.A. in Geography from Bucknell University.

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