Mayor Lacey Beaty

Mayor of Beaverton, Oregon

Mayor Lacey Beaty is a dynamic leader with a deep commitment to public service, equity, and community building. Elected as the first female mayor of Beaverton in 2020, she has since made significant strides in improving housing affordability, enhancing veterans’ services, and creating a more bikeable and walkable city. A U.S. Army veteran who served in the Iraq War, Mayor Beaty has used her platform to advocate strongly for veteran causes at both the state and national levels. Her leadership was crucial in the passage of Oregon’s HB 2295, which prioritizes veteran-owned businesses in state contracting, and her advocacy led to impactful changes in HUD rules regarding housing vouchers for veterans.

Mayor Beaty’s vision for Beaverton includes a community where families of all backgrounds can thrive. She has championed policies that focus on housing, sustainability, and accessibility, ensuring that Beaverton remains affordable and inclusive for all residents. Her work has earned her a place on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, further elevating her role in shaping national policy discussions.

In addition to her leadership on city issues, Mayor Beaty’s personal journey from veteran to public servant demonstrates her unwavering commitment to service. She continues to engage with the community on key initiatives, from expanding affordable housing options, to ensuring that people struggling with homelessness can live a life of dignity. She is a tireless advocate for Beaverton and has helped bring millions in State and Federal funding into the City.

Through her leadership, Mayor Beaty is building a Beaverton that is not just prepared for the future, but one that leads by example, ensuring progress, accessibility, and community for all.

Jorrit de Jong

Director, Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University; Faculty Co-Chair, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative; Emma Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management, Harvard Kennedy School

Jorrit de Jong is director of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University and the Emma Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School. His research, teaching, and engagement with practice focus on the challenges of making the public sector more effective, efficient, equitable, and responsive to social needs.

His scholarly research has been published in academic journals such as Public Administration Review, Cities, Public Management Review, Administration & Society, Stanford Social Innovation Review, International Journal of Public Administration, and the Journal of Public Health Management and Policy. A specialist in experiential learning, Jorrit has taught strategic management and public problem-solving in degree courses and executive education programs at Harvard and around the world.

Since 2016, Jorrit has been director and faculty co-chair of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a joint program of Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School, funded by and executed in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Jorrit has designed and led field labs on neighborhood development, organized crime, human trafficking and other social issues that require multiple agencies to innovate together. As director of the Center for Government Studies at Leiden University, Jorrit co-founded the Kafka Brigade, an action research team that helped governments in the Netherlands and the UK diagnose and remedy bureaucratic dysfunction. Before that, he was founding co-director of a start-up technology firm for public sector innovation in Amsterdam.

Jorrit holds a PhD in Public Policy and Management (VU Amsterdam), a Master in Philosophy (Leiden) and a Master in Public Administration (Leiden). He has written extensively, including the books “The State of Access: Success and Failure of Democracies to Create Equal Opportunities” (Brookings 2008, co-edited); “Agents of Change: Strategy and Tactics for Social Innovation” (Brookings 2012, co-authored); and “Dealing with Dysfunction: Innovative Problem Solving in the Public Sector” (Brookings, 2016). Jorrit co-developed more than 60 teaching cases, simulation exercises, toolkits and learning modules on governance and leadership.

Howard Koh

Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Bloomberg Center for Cities faculty affiliate

Dr. Howard K. Koh is the Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health as well as a member of the Faculty Executive Committee of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. In these roles, he advances interdisciplinary leadership education and training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as well as across Harvard University. He also serves as the inaugural Chair of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Initiative on Health and Homelessness and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality and Religion at Harvard University. Previously at Harvard School of Public Health (2003-2009), he was Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Director of the School’s Center for Public Health Preparedness.

Jennifer Molinsky

Director, Housing an Aging Society Program, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Jennifer Molinsky is Director of the Housing an Aging Society Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies and a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design. As Director, Dr. Molinsky leads research exploring the housing challenges facing an aging population, including affordability, accessibility and safety in the home, community livability, and connections between housing, services, and health. She was lead author on the Center’s major reports on the challenges of housing an aging society, including Housing America’s Older Adults 2023; Advancing Housing and Health Equity for Older Adults: Pandemic Innovations and Policy Ideas, The State of the Nation’s Housing for Older Adults 2018 and 2019; Older Households 2015-2035: Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population (2016); and Housing America’s Older Adults: Meeting the Needs of an Aging Population (2014), and has also written about the role of housing in wellbeing in older age. Jennifer was also a co-editor of the 2018 book “A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality” and the 2014 book “Homeownership Built to Last: Balancing Access, Affordability, and Risk After the Housing Crisis.”

Jennifer is a member of the Advisory Board of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging and the Board of Directors of both Hearth, Inc and 2Life Communities. She serves on the steering committee for The Chan School of Public Health Initiative on Health and Homelessness at Harvard and co-directs the Healthy Places Design Lab at the Graduate School of Design. Prior to joining the Center, she was Chief Planner for Long Range Planning in Newton, MA, and held positions with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Municipal Art Society of New York, Abt Associates, and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ government housing finance practice.

Jennifer holds a PhD in Urban Planning from MIT, a Masters of Public Affairs-Urban and Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and a BA from Yale.

Niki Wilkerson

Social Justice Advocate; Benevolence Coordinator at Summit Church