I am a lawyer from the Philippines and Humphrey Fellow from the University of Minnesota. I am passionate about building affordable housing for the poor and developing social enterprises that empower them. 

Agustina Rodriguez Biasone is a lawyer, magister in public policy, and urban practitioner; Hubert H. Humphrey Program Fellow, Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Agustina is a lawyer with a master’s in public policy. She worked for more than 7 years on the most ambitious urbanization project for informal settlements in Argentina and was part of the crisis committee of the Ministry of Human Development and Habitat of the City of Buenos Aires during the Covid pandemic. In the last period, she was in charge of executing strategies to address the social economy of the most vulnerable neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.

Alejandra is a  Ph.D. candidate whose research explores housing policy in post-conflict cities. Her study on Colombian government-subsidized housing investigates social cohesion and gender differences in a war-torn society. Her research seeks to understand the impact of this housing program on residents’ ability to rebuild trust, community, and livelihoods. She compared three government-subsidized projects for war-affected people in three cities. She aims to identify how the different social programs applied and public spaces built in those areas impacted residents’ living conditions. She also focuses on the factors driving the neighborhood's perception of housing tenure security.

Before beginning her Ph.D., Alejandra practiced urban planning law for nearly 15 years in Colombia. She worked as an advisor for several municipal comprehensive plans of urban development. She participated in policy design and negotiations with stakeholders for the application and amendment of these comprehensive plans. Her work focuses on housing policy, municipal financing, and large-scale urban projects in local communities in Latin America. 

Andrew L. Gast-Bray, Ph.D., AICP, CNU-A is Director of Planning for Monongalia County, WV. As a planner and engineer focusing on designing, implementing, and managing solutions for sustainable systems for over 30 years, he is responsible for several innovative patents, technologies, and methodologies in use around the world.  He is currently working on tools to solve the international housing crisis and new urban planning methods to drive toward a more sustainable future.

Andrew has also founded Sustainable West Virginia, a statewide advocacy organization, and has served as a Director of Planning and Development in New England, the Midwest, and Virginia.  He has taught Planning and Engineering at a number of universities around the world.  Andrew received his post-doctoral planning degree in Community Planning from the University of Cincinnati and his Ph.D. in Engineering from Ecole Centrale de Lille in France.

Andrew has extensive professional planning work ranging from planning legislation and regulations, comp plans, and many multimodal plans in use around the country. He has a diverse set of publications in Planning and Engineering including in InterPlan and ITE journals.  Andrew is active in, and accredited by, the Congress for New Urbanism, and has been active in the development of the LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system. 

Over her 32-year career, Anindita  Mitra has been a land use planner, green building architect, urban designer, researcher, educator, and energy and equity activist. Sustainability has been at the core of Ms. Mitra’s company, CREÄ Affiliates, LLC, formerly headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Some of her notable publications include Painting the Town Green (RICS, 2003), and Planning Infrastructure to Sustain America (ASCE, 2010). Much of her work lies at the intersection of land, water, energy, food, human health, and equitable opportunity for a number of large infrastructure projects and land use plans. She brings a keen sense of equitable planning, particularly how it applies to long-range plans. Her speaking engagements have ranged from regional, state, and national APA Conferences as well as international forums like the OECD. She has a Master’s Degree in City Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. 

I have been working in Local Government land Use Planning since 1980. I became Certified by  the American Institute of Certified Planners in 1987 and a licensed Professional Planner in New Jersey in 1990. I have development numerous comprehensive Master Plans and Comprehensive Plans I have also prepared many Housing Plans addressing affordable housing issues. As a Planning Director and now as a Township Administrator I have overseen the development of Thousands of housing units including approximately 1000 affordable housing units. I am very interested in this area of land use planning and have seen both the right and the wrong ways to address this difficult issue.

Bish Sanyal is the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)/Hubert Humphrey Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT from 1994 to 2002 and was Chair of the MIT faculty from 2007 to 2009. Sanyal’s research, teaching, and academic leadership reflect his multidisciplinary education in architecture (BA) from IIT (Kharagpur), urban planning (MUP) from the University of Kansas, and international development planning (PhD) from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Carina Ravizu Machado is an architect, urban planner, and urban policy specialist; Hubert H. Humphrey Program Fellow, Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Carina is a Mexican architect, urban planner, and urban policy specialist. She has more than 10 years of professional experience in the public and private sector, NGOs, and international organizations, including as former National Deputy Secretary of Urban Development and Housing for Mexico, and former Cities Program Director for Mexico and Colombia at the World Resources Institute. She has coordinated and designed public policies and projects regarding urban development, housing, mobility, and road safety at the local, subnational, and national levels.

I'm Franny Xi Wu (she/her), a Master in City Planning + Master of Science in Real Estate Development dual degree candidate at MIT. I hold a BA from Wellesley College. In the past, I’ve helped run a guerrilla anti-displacement movement in East China, a homeless shelter in Cambridge, and a community land trust in Boston Chinatown. With a focus on land financialization and affordable housing in rapidly urbanizing regions, I hope to facilitate policy interventions that empower communities marginalized by development. 

Irayda Ruiz Bode FAICP, has more than twenty years of professional experience in all aspects of international infrastructure planning and urban development. Throughout her professional career, she has been part of trans-disciplinary and multicultural teams having successfully worked in collaboration with public and private institutions mainly in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean but also in India and Tajikistan.

Her expertise focuses on design processes for planning, construction, and management of social infrastructure, especially in housing, education, and health sectors, applying resilient, participatory, and sustainable practices in development projects for vulnerable urban and rural communities.

Her work as an international consultant provides technical assistance to apply and adapt design standards to ensure environmental and cultural pertinence of planning while developing institutional capacity to enhance community assets and social infrastructure.  

Ruiz Bode´s teaching and research publications focus on public facilities, redevelopment, and the impact of international migrations in urban and regional planning. She currently serves as the President of the Iberoamerican Federation of Urbanists (FIU), and in 2024 was reappointed a member of the National Commission for Housing under the Vice Ministry of Housing of Guatemala (CONAVI).

Jing is a transportation planner at the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Jing serves as the Chair of the American Planning Association International Division and co-chairs the Japan and U.S. Collaboration Interest Group. Jing is a member of the Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Besides planning, Jing plays piano and develops websites. 

Liaison of APA's Housing and Community Development Division. Kanika's research is centered around race and ethnic politics, housing policy, and inequality in the United States. My ongoing work focuses on the politics of racial segregation and integration as they relate to fair and affordable housing. 

Krishna K. Shrivastava, AICP is a certified Urban and Regional Planner and a Life Member of the American Planning Association and AACE-I (Association for Advancement of Cost Engineering International.) He holds a B. Arch (IIT-Roorkee, India) and a M. Arch Degree from The Ohio State University First student to obtain practical training, (Tanzania - projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Greece) and Thesis project (Kathmandu International Airport Expansion), abroad at IIT-R.. 

He has over 50 years of domestic and international experience, in the areas of program/project management, project controls, urban/regional planning, architecture, environmental planning, teaching, grants acquisition and business development. 

With strong analytical capabilities for root cause analysis, risk identification and mitigating actions, organizational and leadership skills, his diverse experience resulted in problem solving, strategic planning and enhancement of organization’s capabilities during various assignments.

He has managed or provided direct technical support to Federal, State, Municipal and Private Sector projects with an emphasis on over 35 years of EVMS experience, starting with USDOE-CSCS/C (1982) the forerunner of ANSI/EIA-748. Projects ranged from $60,000 (local park) to a $93 billion (Nuclear Waste Repository – 1998 Dollars), $1 Billion Chemical Plant Facility Expansion.

He was the recipient of the 1998 SAIC Employee of the Year and the 2009 2nd Quarter Site-Centric Performance Awards, and Leidos Recognition for Safety (over two million hours) on a Refinery CIP project, amongst many other awards.

He was the Founding Chairman of the AACE-I Project Diversity Task Force in 2016, influenced the chartering of two state-wide Sections (Nevada [1993] and Utah [2011]) and the expansion of AACE-I internationally including India. His APA involvements include membership in the Program Committee of the Ohio Chapter [1993-1998] and a Leadership role in the International Division since 2022.

His involvement with affordable housing dates to 1971 when he was commissioned to develop a Low-Income Housing Colony for employees of an Insurance Company (Jabalpur). He was involved in leading the effort for a Regional Housing Conditions Survey in southern West Virginia (Region 1 – 1975). He has been involved in the APA-ID effort on affordable housing since 2023 with concentration on cost reduction through alternative materials and construction techniques to ensure sustainability and resiliency of proffered solutions. Current primary focus is on finding a solution for the housing crisis in Ukraine and simultaneously providing sustainable employment opportunities.

A strong belief in knowledge-sharing through mentoring has resulted in providing pro-bono services to Government of Madhya Pradesh, and the African Planners Institute (API), Kampala through developing contacts for cross pollination of ideas, and mentoring students and young professionals abroad.  

Mai Nguyen has more than 10 years of experience in green buildings, sustainable real estate, and urban development in Asia-Pacific and North America. She holds a CFA ESG Investing Certificate, LEED AP (BD+C, ID+C), and EDGE Expert. She is a climate resilience consultant in the Climate Business Department, International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group. Before IFC,  she was engaged in the City of Boston’s first Zero Net Carbon Building Zoning Initiative and the City’s Climate Resiliency Requirements. Ms. Nguyen is a Humphrey scholar, an ADB-JSP alumna, and an Op-Ed columnist who writes about sustainable urban development and ESG in real estate. She also serves as the Country Representative to Vietnam of the American Planning Association – International Division. Ms. Nguyen earned a master’s degree from Saitama University in Japan and a research fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Michelle Tullo is the Housing Justice Director for the City of Hudson and a certified urban and regional planner. In her current role she has created the Hudson Housing Trust Fund, manages the Hudson Roots emergency rental assistance program, is spearheading the rehabilitation and development of affordable housing for renters and homeowners, and is a founding member of Trillium Community Land Trust.  Prior to this role Michelle worked as an urban planner in New Orleans and throughout the South. She holds a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of New Orleans and a B.A. in International Studies from American University.

Nicolas Maggio is the CEO at Weatherizers Without Borders (WWB); Hubert Humphrey Fellow, Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nicolas has worked for 20+ years in lower-income housing and energy intersections. CEO at WWB, a nonprofit based in the US designing and implementing sustainable home improvement public policies in Latin America. Working on low-income housing and energy efficiency since 2002, he created, developed, and implemented projects such as weatherization, EE & renewables for lower-income housing, and training centers. WWB has active cooperation agreements with the National governments of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico.

Senior Planner, Dane County Planning and Development. Madison, WI

Salvador Herrara is the CEO of Urbanistica; Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Salvador is CEO (since 2013) and founding partner of Urbanistica, where he is responsible for the company's portfolio development, client management, research, and methodology leadership. He holds twenty-three years of experience as an urban and mobility planner in the government, NGO, and private sectors. Salvador worked for ten years in urban and transportation planning in various cities and countries, including the United States, Spain, and Mexico; and was Chief Operating Officer at WRI Mexico for six years.

Selmah is Assistant Director of the Special Program in Urban and Regional Studies / Humphrey Fellowship Program. At MIT, she has managed an international research fellowship on sustainable urban development and was Program Manager in the MIT Governance Lab. She holds degrees from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University and Middlebury College.

Tenzin Jamtsho is the Director of Administration and Finance, Druk Gyalpo’s Institute, Bhutan; Hubert H. Humphrey Program Fellow Organizational affiliation: Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has previously served as the Chief Engineer for the DGI. He was also a part of the Royal Academy Construction Project team responsible for the construction and development of the Royal Academy campus and served in Bhutan’s civil service in the Urban Infrastructure Services Division and Water and Sanitation Division under the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement.