URBAN ANCHORS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
A COMMITMENT TO PLACE, GROWTH, AND COMMUNITY
Hosted by
PENN INSTITUTE FOR
URBAN RESEARCH
Houston Hall
University of Pennsylvania
October 8-9, 2007
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BIOGRAPHIES (S-Z)
John Schmidt is a partner in the Chicago-based international law firm of Mayer Brown LLP. In recent years his practice has focused on public private partnerships involving transportation infrastructure. He served in the Clinton Administration as the Associate Attorney General of the United States and as Ambassador and Chief U.S. Negotiator to the Uruguay Round under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He was also Chairman of the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority in Chicago. He was named by American Lawyer as one of the 27 “All-Stars of the ‘90s” of the American bar and by National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. Mr. Schmidt is a Life Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Trustee of the Illinois Institute of Technology and Chair of the Board of Overseers of the IIT Chicago Kent Law School. He received his B.A. from Harvard College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Eleanor Sharpe is an Associate Director at University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Community Partnerships where she supervises a full portfolio of projects involving sustaining, maintaining, and creating new and effective partnerships between the University and the West Philadelphia Community. Ms. Sharpe is an adjunct instructor for planning workshops at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design in the Department of City and Regional Planning. She also recently co-taught Urban Design at Drexel University’s School of Architecture. Prior to this, Eleanor worked at Gannett Fleming focusing on the areas of community planning, public involvement, way-finding and signage plans. Eleanor received a B.A. from Howard University and M.C.P. from the University of Pennsylvania.
Stephen Sheppard is the Robert F. White Class of 1952 Professor of Economics at Williams College and director of the Williams College Center for Creative Community Development (C3D). Before coming to Williams, he was at Oberlin College, the London School of Economics, Washington University in St. Louis, and Virginia Tech. Professor Sheppard’s research focuses on the economics of housing market and urban areas, the impacts of cultural and environmental amenities on house values, land use regulation, and the causes and consequences of urban expansion in cities around the globe. His research has appeared in several edited volumes as well as Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, Urban Studies, Regional Studies, Economic Inquiry, Economica, The Economic Journal, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics and the Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics.
Charles Shorter is Executive Director in the Real Estate Transaction group of Ernst & Young. He has over 25 years of experience in market analysis, financial structuring and strategic planning in all types of real estate uses, including residential, office, retail, and mixed-use developments. His clients include public sector agencies, such as the U. S. General Services Administration and the Port Authority of NY & NJ, and private sector developers, such as Forest City, LCOR, and the Trump Organization. Mr. Shorter has a sub-specialty in cultural and entertainment facility development and operations. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the New 42nd Street Corporation and the Studio Museum in Harlem. A graduate of Princeton and Columbia Universities, he is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, as well as a member of the President’s Council at Cooper Union.
Janet Marie Smith is Vice President of Planning and Development for Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse. Under her guidance, many of downtown Baltimore’s abandoned or under-utilized sites have gained a second life. Ms. Smith’s work for SBE&R extends beyond Baltimore, where her current primary project is the renovation of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Her prior work experience prior includes the following: President of Turner Sports and Entertainment Development, Vice President of Planning and Development for the Atlanta Braves baseball team, a Baltimore Orioles
Vice President involved in the planning and development of Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Director of the redevelopment of Pershing Square in Los Angeles, and Coordinator of Architecture and Design for Battery Park City. Ms. Smith received a B.A. in architecture from Mississippi State University and a master’s in urban planning from City College of New York.
Ralph Smith is Senior Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private philanthropy dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. He helped design the Foundation’s Neighborhood Transformation and Family Development initiative, a comprehensive effort to help communities improve outcomes for children by strengthening families and neighborhoods. Ralph spent the last decade working with a broad range of efforts to improve national and international philanthropy. Ralph serves on the Boards of the Council on Foundations, the
Foundation Center, Wachovia Regional Foundation, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and Venture Philanthropy Partners. He was a member of the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and authored briefs in landmark cases before the United States Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals. He served in senior leadership positions for the Philadelphia school district and as senior advisor to the mayor. He is the founding director for the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children’s Network.
Tony Sorrentino serves as Penn’s Executive Director of Public Affairs and develops communications strategies for Penn’s initiatives in urban planning, real estate and economic development, and campus design. Sorrentino joined Penn in 2000 after several years as a marketing and communications professional and arts administator in Philadelphia. He took his Masters in City Planning from Penn’s School of Design and his Bachelor of Arts from LaSalle University.
Mark J. Stern is Professor of Social Welfare and History and Co-director of the Urban Studies program at the University of Pennsylvania. His research has focused on 19th- and 20th-century US social history, poverty and social welfare policy, and the social impact of the arts and culture on urban neighborhoods. His most recent book, co-authored with Michael B. Katz, One Nation Divisible: What America Was and What It Is Becoming, traces the changing contours of social inequality and personal life in the United States during the 20th century. Stern’s work on the social impact of the arts (in collaboration with Susan Seifert) has documented the role of cultural engagement on civic institutions and the economic well-being of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.
Marilyn Swartz-Lloyd is President and CEO of MASCO, the Medical, Academic, and Scientific Community Organization in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area established in 1972. MASCO and its affiliates offer several services for its 19 member institutions: area planning and development, parking and shuttle buses, group purchasing, shared business services, telecommunications, and child care. Marilyn has worked for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Lend Lease Residential Management Services, BRF&G Consulting Group, Beacon Management Company and the Economic
Development and Industrial Corporation of Boston (“EDIC”) where she oversaw the development of both the Marine Industrial Park in South Boston and CrossTown in Roxbury, as well as being responsible for Industrial Development Bond Financing for the City, small business loans, and a job-training center. Marilyn holds a B.A. from Smith College and a master’ in city planning from Yale University.
Susan M. Wachter is the Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management and Real Estate, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. She served as assistant secretary for policy development and research at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1999 to 2001. As director of the Wharton GIS Lab, Dr. Wachter is a national expert in housing analysis and the first woman to head the American Real Estate Urban Economics Association. She is currently researching default and delinquency models, tenure choice, and homeownership affordability, real estate price index methodologies, and modeling neighborhood change. In 2004, Dr.
Wachter became a founding co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research.
Darren Walker is Vice President of Foundation Initiatives at The Rockefeller Foundation, where he co-leads the Foundation’s work in supporting innovations that build the resilience of poor and vulnerable people. He served as Chief Operating Officer of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a community development organization, which played an instrumental role in the revitalization or Harlem. Mr. Walker graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1982, receiving the Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Award. In 1986, he graduated from the University of Texas School of Law and received the Law Alumni Association Outstanding Graduate Award. He has a joint appointment at the NYU School of Law and Wagner School of Public Policy and is also a fellow at the Institute of Urban Design.
Henry S. Webber is Vice-President for Community and Government Affairs at the University of Chicago and Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Service Administration. In addition to his appointment in the School of Social Service Administration, Mr. Webber teaches at the Law School. He has written widely on issues of community development, health care and education policy. Mr. Webber is the Chair of the Governing Board of the University of Chicago Charter School Corporation, Chair of the Oversight Board of the Chicago Consortium on School Research and Vice-President of the Board of Directors of Leadership Greater Chicago. He is a member of several boards of directors including:
the Board of Directors of ShoreBank, the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, the Metropolitan Planning Council and others. Mr. Webber has a B.A. from Brown University and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Carl Weisbrod is President of the Real Estate Division for Trinity Church and Executive Vice-President of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel, an Episcopal parish chartered in 1697. Mr. Weisbrod manages and develops Trinity’s real estate holdings in Manhattan, totaling approximately six million square feet over 28 sites. Prior to joining Trinity, he was the founding president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the nation’s largest business improvement district. Mr. Weisbrod serves as an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He is a director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Convention Center Development
Corporation. He is also a director of Tarragon Corporation and is a trustee of the Ford Foundation, among other organizations. In 2002, Crain’s New York Business named him one of the “100 Most Influential Leaders in Business.” Mr. Weisbrod is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University’s School of Law.
Wim Wiewel is Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Baltimore. The University of Baltimore is part of the University System of Maryland and offers its 5,000 students an array of undergraduate and nationally recognized master’s programs, doctoral programs and a law school. From 1979-2004, Mr. Wiewel was with the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he most recently served as dean of the College of Business Administration. He also served as Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and as special assistant to the chancellor. Mr. Wiewel is past president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, a fellow of the Urban Land Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and senior editorial adviser of Economic Development Quarterly. A prolific writer, Mr. Wievel’s most recent books are The University as Urban Developer and Suburban Sprawl. He holds degrees in sociology and urban planning from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University.
Nancy L. Zimpher is the 25th President of the University of Cincinnati; she took office in October 2003. Under her leadership and guidance, UC embarked on an unprecedented consultation process that involved a wide spectrum of the university’s stakeholders and resulted in the strategic vision, UC|21: Defining the New Urban Research University. Under President Zimpher’s direction and UC|21, the university continues to make significant strides in its vision to become a leading urban institution for the 21st century. The university has experienced enrollment growth to over 36,000 students, increased retention and graduation rates, improved student satisfaction and enhanced national rankings – on
the latter breaking into the Princeton Review’s 2008 best colleges list. President Zimpher serves as chair of the Board of Directors for NASULGC, the nation’s primary alliance of public universities. Dr. Zimpher chairs the newly formed national network of presidents called the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU), an organization committed to the urban agenda and the role of urban-located universities in their communities.