The Housing Futures Center brings together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working across disciplines and sectors to advance housing solutions that are equitable,
data-informed, and grounded in the realities facing communities.
By connecting research with practice, the Center supports collaboration across the Puget Sound region and beyond—bringing together leaders who are shaping the future of housing through policy, planning, and community-based work.
Center Staff
Gregg Colburn
Founder & Director | Housing Futures Center
Gregg Colburn is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed University Professor and Associate Professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. He is also Founder and Director of the Housing Futures Center at the University of Washington.
Gregg publishes research on topics related to housing and homelessness and is co-author of the book, Homelessness is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. He is also co-author of the recently released book, Affordable Housing in the United States. His research has been featured in leading media outlets, including the Atlantic, The New York Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio.
Gregg holds a B.A. from Albion College, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University, and a M.S.W. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Prior to academia, he worked as an investment banker and private equity professional. At the University of Washington, Gregg teaches classes in housing, urban economics, and finance. He serves as co-chair of the University of Washington’s Homelessness Research Initiative and is a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness Research Council.
Katie Escudero
Director of Center Operations | Housing Futures Center
Katie Escudero is the Director of Center Operations for the Housing Futures Center. In this role, she leads the Center’s operations and works closely with the Director to advance research, education, and engagement across Washington state.
Katie brings nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of housing, policy, and strategy. Before joining the Center, she worked at two Puget Sound housing authorities, King County Housing Authority and Tacoma Housing Authority, where she led research and evaluation projects that informed major policy changes, directed complex, multidisciplinary initiatives, and built partnerships spanning the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. She began her career in housing at the Downtown Women’s Center, a nonprofit affordable housing provider in Los Angeles’s Skid Row.
Katie holds bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.
Sarah Randall
Project Manager | Housing Futures Center
Sarah Randall is a Program Manager in the College of Built Environments Office of Research at the University of Washington. She supports a wide range of research operations and activities across the College of Built Environments. She manages administrative operations for the Housing Futures Center.
Sarah has been associated with the UW in various capacities since 2014. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature and Master of Public Health from the University of Washington.
Faculty & Research Affiliates
Arthur Acolin
Arthur Acolin is an Associate Professor and Bob Filley Endowed Professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. His research examines how institutional and market features affect housing outcomes (tenure choice, housing consumption and mobility decision) in the US but also in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. This includes identifying barriers to homeownership and rentership and market and policy interventions that can overcome these barriers.
Amanda Bankston
Amanda Bankston designs and facilitates collaborative processes that help people work across difference to address complex public challenges. She advances this work as Director of the Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance — a policy lab that partners with communities, organizations, and governments to design, test, and scale innovations for the public good.
Driven by the belief that better public policy begins with better ways of working together, Amanda blends research and community engagement to support shared problem-solving grounded in both evidence and lived experience. Her scholarship examines facilitative leadership — the skills, decision-making practices, and group dynamics that help groups build trust, share power, and move from dialogue to action, especially in moments of complexity and disagreement. This research is rooted in her professional experience facilitating place-based collaborations to address community divisions and disparities across the United States.
A native of El Paso, Texas, Amanda holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona and is completing a doctorate in public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. Her work is bound by a deep commitment to building bridges—between research and practice, leaders and those they serve, and people and ideas that have yet to find each other.
Raheem Chaudhry
Raheem Chaudhry is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. His research focuses on how public policy can expand access to opportunity for all individuals, particularly those from disadvantages and historically marginalized backgrounds. His current work examines the effects of social and housing policy on individual wellbeing. He received his PhD in Public Policy from UC Berkeley and his Master of Public Affairs from UT Austin. Before getting his PhD, he conducted research on a range of issues affecting low-income families at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Sara Curran
Sara Curran joined the faculty of the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance in 2005. Sara is a Professor of International Studies, Professor of Sociology, and Professor of Public Policy & Governance. She is an Adjunct Professor of Global Health, affiliate faculty of the Center for Global Studies, the Southeast Asian Center, the Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA), and EarthLab. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan (B.S., Natural Resource Management), North Carolina State University (M.S., Sociology and Economics), and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Sociology). Currently, she serves as director of the UW’s Center for Demography & Ecology, and UW Associate Vice Provost for Research in the Office of Research (AVPR).
Sara researches demography dynamics, gender, migration, and environment in many contexts around the globe. Projects include: 1) improving small area population estimates; 2) social change and migration dynamics, 3) climate change, natural disasters, and population change, 4) several projects related to applied research and training, and 5) global studies research. She has authored work that appears in ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Demography, Population and Development Review, Social Science Research, Social Forces, Teaching Sociology, Journal of International Women’s Studies, Ambio, Population & Environment, and Journal of Marriage and the Family.
Rebecca J. Walter
Rebecca J. Walter is a Professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. Dr. Walter’s primary research area centers on real estate investment and public safety. Dr. Walter partners with colleagues at the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center to identify and promote policies that enhance public safety. She collaborates with criminologists and population health researchers to analyze spatial-temporal crime and injury patterns across different types of land uses, including housing developments and commercial real estate. She examines how real estate investment and urban development influence crime and injury patterns over time at a micro-scale (properties, blocks, and street segments). This research seeks to guide economic development and real estate practices that enhance public safety outcomes.
Vince Wang
Vince Wang is an assistant professor in the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington. Vince’s research centers on urban development and policy. His work examines issues related to housing supply, socioeconomic mobility, and the development of sustainable communities.
At the Housing Futures Center, Vince contributes to the development of housing related data infrastructure and tools, while also conducting both applied and academic research projects.
Student Affiliates
Edward Engel
Edward Engel recently completed his Master of Urban Planning at the University of Washington (June 2026), with a Graduate Certificate in Housing Studies. During graduate school, he interned at SDOT, working on curbside asset management and auditing signage citywide to ensure data accuracy.
Before graduate school, Edward served as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Snohomish County Transportation Coalition, leading community engagement efforts and advising jurisdictions on transportation best practices. He holds a BA in Economics and Japanese from Whitman College.
Zach Jaffe
Zach Jaffe is a Master of Urban Planning candidate in UW’s College of Built Environments. His areas of focus include land use, housing policy and food systems planning. Currently, he is studying recently passed Washington State housing policy and Community Land Trusts. His work is driven by a desire to bring forth solutions to our pressing urban issues as well as a fascination in the intersections of policy, economics, and quality of life.
Zach serves as the Planning Student Association (MUPSA) Faculty Liaison and the American Planning Association (APA) Food Systems Planning Division Student Liaison. For the 2025-26 academic year, he was awarded the Department of Urban Design and Planning Special Service Award for his proactive work as the MUPSA Faculty Liaison.
Zach holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Tulane University. Recently, he interned on the Land Use Planning team at Barghausen Consulting Engineers, where he analyzed countless zoning codes across the country. Prior to discovering a passion for urban planning, he worked on a variety of projects in the food industry, ranging from farm-to-table restaurants, sustainable packaging, and launching an ice cream company with his brother. He also has a background in outdoor education and is passionate about the outdoors.
Julia Karon
Lizzie Tong
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Tong is a doctoral student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. She applies a mixed-methods approach to examining how urban policies shape economic opportunity for low-income households. Their dissertation studies residential displacement in Washington state, with a focus on community-based organizations as policy levers against involuntary moves.Annika Turner
Annika Turner is a Master of Public Administration candidate at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance and is pursuing a Certificate in Real Estate from the Runstad Department. She is working with the Housing Futures Center to conduct research on recent state housing policies as part of a multi-state effort to inform policymaking aimed at increasing housing supply.
Prior to graduate school, Annika worked in social services and community advocacy for nine years in Kitsap county. Her interests include affordable housing development and policy, innovative home ownership models that reduce racial wealth disparities, and residential design that fosters community.
Kathleen Zhu
Kathleen Zhu is a Master of Public Administration candidate and Civic Engagement for the 21st Century Fellow at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Her work with the UW Housing Futures Center examines off-site construction as a pathway for scaling affordable, for-sale starter homes across Washington State, with a focus on production, development, and delivery challenges.
Prior to graduate school, Kathleen served as an Innovation Manager in the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Housing, where she modernized the city’s primary housing data system and led process improvement efforts to reduce barriers to accessing affordable housing. She also worked at McKinsey & Company, where she advised public, private, and nonprofit clients on strategy and operations, and contributed to research on 21st-century companies with the McKinsey Global Institute. She holds a B.A. in Business Analytics with a minor in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.