Karen Chapple, Ph.D., is the Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, where she also serves as Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning. She is Professor Emerita of City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as department chair and held the Carmel P. Friesen Chair in Urban Studies. Chapple studies inequalities in the planning, development, and governance of regions in the U.S. and Latin America, with a focus on economic development and housing.

DrT (as she prefers to be called) (she/her) is a dynamic speaker, bestselling author and the President and CEO of TheCaseMade, an organization dedicated to helping leaders powerfully and intentionally make the case for systems change. In her role at TheCaseMade, DrT works with hundreds of passionate social changemakers, innovators and adaptive leaders around the United States who are building better, stronger communities that are diverse, equitable and inclusive. By aligning their community stakeholders around the kind of deep systems changes that can improve population outcomes, these leaders are able to grow their impact, scale their programs, and harness the investments they need to improve their communities.

Evelyne St-Louis (she/her) is an urban planning professional passionate about advancing equitable urban policy & development. She is especially interested in affordable housing, land use, and transportation issues. In prior roles, Evelyne has worked as a planner for the City of Hartford, CT, and as a consultant with Strategic Economics, an urban economics firm based in Berkeley, CA. Evelyne St-Louis holds a Master of City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Geography from McGill University.

Michelle Zhang holds a Master of Science in Planning and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies; Peace, Conflict and Justice; and Human Geography from the University of Toronto. To bring together her interests in both global and local scales, Michelle is particularly invested in exploring how collaborative governance and partnerships can support the development of community spaces and places.

Jeff Allen is a cartographer and urban data scientist. He has an MA and PhD in Geography from the University of Toronto focusing on neighbourhood change, suburbanization of poverty, and transit accessibility in Canadian cities. He additionally holds a BASc in civil engineering, has worked as a data science and visualization consultant for public and non-profit organizations, and has published several academic journal articles and public reports. He has also taught courses and workshops in GIS, spatial analysis, urban geography, and transportation planning. 

Julia Greenberg is interested in using geospatial and data analysis to understand the impacts of land use, housing policy, and climate change on housing vulnerability and displacement. Julia is committed to collaborating with community-based organizations, governments, and other stakeholders to promote strategies that increase equitable access to affordable housing.

Sara O’Connor, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar in the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in Planning, Policy and Design from the University of California, Irvine, a Masters of Urban Planning from New York University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies from Bryn Mawr College. O’Connor studies urban political participation, civic activism, and governance focusing on achieving representation in development.

Paul holds a Ph.D. in Planning from the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia. He is interested in comprehensive community development planning with a particular focus on housing development and financing models as well as decolonization and redevelopment of aging, unjust, and racialized communities. Other areas of interest include property rights and institutional studies, socioeconomic development and spatial justice (fair and equitable distribution in space of socially and economically valued resources and opportunities), impacts of climate change and migration on cities, indigenous and reconciliation-based planning, community engagement and partnership, and project planning and implementation management (appraisals, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation), among other areas.

Jen (she/her) has more than 20 years of communications expertise related to broad social change issues. Before joining TheCaseMade, she spent five years as Director of Communications at the US Interagency Council on Homelessness and the five years before that as the Director of the Family and Youth Services Bureau’s National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth. Jen’s a journalist by training, having spent the early part of her career in Brazil, reporting for the New York Times, MSNBC, and others. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and three musical theater-loving kids and is proudly a Gallup-certified Strengths coach.

Mariel (she/her/ella) has extensive experience in financial and business management in both the nonprofit and private sectors and over a decade of work in community grassroots organizing around immigration and housing/homeless justice. Her expertise in collaborative efforts around policy building, community conflict navigation, and transformative justice has supported Kansas’s local and statewide social justice movement. Mariel’s previous work focused on financial health and sustainability for local housing authorities. Her academic background is in music theory and composition, focusing on violin performance. She resides in Lawrence, Kansas, with her incredibly supportive community and family.

Samara (she/her/ella) has spent her career working to convene, connect, leverage, and drive communities to support and demand opportunities that lead to the liberation of marginalized members by centering equity and self-defined success. She believes that a robust, engaged and broad constituency of stakeholders, positioned as a constant and unyielding voice for practical, system-wide changes, can foster sustained and widespread improvement. Before joining the team at TheCaseMade, Samara launched and led Kansas City Action Fund, a 501c4 public education policy and advocacy organization utilizing a collective impact model to (re)vision the promise of public education. Previous professional endeavors have found Samara engaging in everything from leading the strategic and operational planning of family and community outreach efforts at a local school district to building trust-based community grantmaking at a philanthropic organization. A social worker and early education specialist by training, Samara has a Master of Social Work from the University of Oklahoma, a Master of Education from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts from Spelman College. She is a U.S. Navy veteran, a wife, and a mother to a ‘spirited’ teenage daughter. On Saturday mornings, you can find Samara curled up on the couch in her Kansas City home; a good book in one hand, coffee in the other and a trashy Lifetime movie on the TV.