Research Council

Dennis Culhane is the Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy at the School of Social Policy and Practice at The University of Pennsylvania. Culhane’s primary expertise is in the field of homelessness and assisted housing. From July 2009 – June 2018 he served as Director of Research at the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He is currently working with multiple states and counties to address the problem of homelessness among seniors and people with disabilities. He is a leader in the integration of administrative data for research and directs Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP), a center that promotes the development of integrated data systems by state and local governments for policy analysis and systems reform. The AISP network consists of 43 states and large counties that link administrative data across education, housing, workforce, justice, health, and social service programs.

Joy Moses is the Alliance’s Vice President of Research and Evidence. Throughout her career, she has worked to reduce poverty and advance racial justice. Before joining the Alliance, she was a private consultant and analyst with the Center for American Progress. Within those roles, she managed projects and developed research reports and other forms of analysis. Early in her career, Joy was a legal advocate, representing the interests of children and youth through her work at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. She is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Stanford University.

Samantha Batko is a senior fellow and practice area lead for the Preventing and Ending Homelessness practice area in the Housing and Communities Division at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on homelessness, housing instability, housing assistance, and supportive services. She has developed expertise on homelessness and housing over a 19-year career in the sector that has included research, federal policy, and technical assistance and training. She has expertise in several primary homelessness programs including homelessness prevention, emergency shelter, rapid re-housing, and permanent supportive housing. She is currently the principal investigator of Urban’s Housing Justice Hub, the evaluation of Denver’s All in Mile High Initiative, and the US Department Housing and Urban Development’s Pay for Success permanent supportive housing demonstration evaluation. Other current projects include the US Department of Health and Human Services Runaway and Homeless Youth Learning Agenda and case studies of Emergency Housing Voucher programs. Past projects have included the evaluation of Tipping Point Community’s Chronic Homelessness Initiative in San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Unaccompanied Women Experiencing Homelessness Needs Assessment, the development of the Emergency Rental Assistance Priority Index, and evaluation of the State of New Jersey’s Keeping Families Together supportive housing program. Batko sits on the State of California Interagency Council on Homelessness Advisory Board, the National Alliance to End Homelessness Research Council, The Homelessness Policy Research Institute based at USC Price, the Homelessness Research Advisory Council for Portland State University, and the Homelessness Research Advisory Board for All Home California. Batko has been cited in the LA Times, Route Fifty, and The Hill multiple times; has published multiple opeds, including in The Hill and in Street Sense (Washington, DC’s “street” newspaper); is frequently a guest on NPR affiliates; and has been a guest on PBS NewsHour.

Rebecca Brown, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. As a clinician-investigator, Dr. Brown focuses on improving functional status among socioeconomically vulnerable older adults, including people experiencing homelessness. Functional status refers to the ability to perform daily activities that are important for quality of life and independence, such as bathing, dressing, and preparing meals. Dr. Brown received her medical school training at Harvard Medical School. She completed residency in internal medicine at University of California, San Francisco, followed by fellowship in geriatric medicine at Harvard Medical School, including an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She returned to UCSF for a research fellowship in geriatric medicine before joining the faculty of the UCSF Division of Geriatrics in 2013. In 2018 she joined the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Melissa Chinchilla is a Project Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles; a Health Services Researcher with the VA Greater Los Angeles (GLA) Health System Research Center of Innovation (COIN): Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation, and Policy; and an Associate Investigator with the VA Rehabilitation Research and Development (RR&D) Center on Enhancing Community Integration for Homeless Veterans (THRIVe). Prior to joining the VA, Dr. Chinchilla was a Research Scientist with AltaMed Health Service’s Institute for Health Equity, one of the largest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in the nation, serving over 400,000 low-income patients in Southern California.  

Dr. Chinchilla’s research focuses on the social determinants of health, with an emphasis on housing and homelessness. She has conducted research on the community integration outcomes of formerly homeless Veterans housed through VA’s largest homeless program, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-VA Supportive Housing (VASH). Her research also focuses on increasing our understanding of Latinx homelessness including barriers to homeless services connection and culturally relevant engagement strategies. Her work has been published in various journals including Cityscape, the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, and the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. She previously served as a Commissioner for the Los Angeles Homelessness Services Authority, one of the largest continuums of care in the nations.  

Dr. Chinchilla earned her doctorate in Urban Studies and Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holds a Master of Science in Health Policy and Management from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Los Angeles native. 

Dr. Melissa Chinchilla is a Project Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles; a Health Services Researcher with the VA Greater Los Angeles Health System Research Center of Innovation: Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation, and Policy; and an Associate Investigator with the VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Center on Enhancing Community Integration for Homeless Veterans. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health, with an emphasis on housing and homelessness. Among other work, her research examines Latinx homelessness including barriers to homeless services connection and culturally relevant engagement strategies. Dr. Chinchilla earned her doctorate in Urban Studies and Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holds a Master of Science in Health Policy and Management from University of California, Los Angeles, and a Master of City and Regional Planning from University of California, Berkeley.

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 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. Gregg 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 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. Gregg 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.  

Margot Kushel, MD is a Professor of Medicine at University of California San Francisco, and Division Chief of the Division of Health Equity and Society and Director of the UCSF Action Research Center for Health Equity and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. She is a practicing general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Dr. Kushel’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of homelessness, with the goal of preventing and ending homelessness and ameliorating the effects of homelessness on health. She is the Principal Investigator of the California State Study of People Experiencing Homelessness (CASPEH) and of multiple NIH studies, including the HOPE HOME Study, a longitudinal cohort study of homelessness in older adults Homelessness and a study of advance care planning in permanent supportive housing. Dr. Kushel serves on the board of Housing California and the National Homelessness Law Center and the Steinberg Institute. She is a member of the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. She speaks at a local, state, and national level about issues of homelessness, and frequently provides testimony to legislative bodies. She received her AB from Harvard College, her MD from Yale and completed residency, chief residency, and fellowship in internal medicine at UCSF.

Jill Khadduri is a national expert on homelessness, the homeless services system, and the intersection between homelessness and housing assistance policy. During 24 years at Abt Associates, she served as the principal investigator for HUD’s Annual Homelessness Assessment Reports to Congress, starting with the development of data reporting standards for the Homeless Management Information System. She is a senior advisor to the ongoing Family Options Study that followed families with children over a 12-year period after they were found in emergency shelters and compared the impacts of giving them access to a Housing Choice Voucher with the impacts of other interventions. In 2024-2025, Dr. Khadduri was the principal investigator for a study that evaluated the outcomes and impacts of a program in Washington State that provides short-term rent subsidies to individuals with disabilities experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Dr. Khadduri is co-author, with Marybeth Shinn, of a comprehensive assessment of homelessness, In the Midst of Plenty: homelessness and what to do about it. Before joining Abt Associates in 2000, Dr. Khadduri was director of the Division of Policy Development in HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research.

Norweeta G. Milburn, Ph.D., is a Research Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute Nathanson Family Resilience Center in the Division of Population and Behavioral Health. She received her Ph.D. in Community Psychology from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). Her research interests include homelessness, substance abuse, mental health and family-based behavioral interventions.

Dr. Milburn has had grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) as a principal investigator or co-investigator. She has lead studies that have examined paths into and out of homelessness, as well as the risk for HIV among homeless youth in the U.S. and Australia; designed and implemented a behavioral intervention for homeless adolescents at risk for HIV and their families; and designed and tested recruitment strategies for behavioral substance abuse interventions. She recently completed a study adapting and testing a behavioral intervention for youth exiting the juvenile justice system and their families. She is the co-Director of a NIDA funded training program, the UCLA HIV/AIDS, Substance Abuse, and Trauma Training Program (HA-STTP). HA-STTP provides training and mentorship for early career ethnic and culturally diverse researchers and post-doctoral scholars to conduct research on reducing substance abuse and HIV transmission in underserved populations at risk for traumatic stress and health disparities. She is the co-Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) – UCLA Prevention Center of Excellence. She is also Director of the Development Core for the UCLA Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services (CHIPTS). She is a co-investigator for NIMH and Fogarty training grants on trauma and mental health in South Africa (Wyatt/PI) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Adolescent Trials Network (Rotheram-Borus/Swendeman/MPI). She has numerous publications and presentations in the areas of homelessness, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and mental health. She has served as a standing member of NIH peer review committees, and has served as an ad hoc member of NIMH and NIDA peer review committees.

Dr. Milburn is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association (APA). She has been a member of the APA Committee on Children, Youth and Families, and chaired the APA 2009 Presidential Task Force on Psychology’s Contribution to End Homelessness. She is a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness Research Council. Her honors include being an inaugural member of the Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology, the Community, Culture and Prevention Science Award from the Society for Prevention Research, and being an honorary Professor for the Division of Psychotherapy and University of Cape Town Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health.

Dr. Deborah K. Padgett, a professor at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University, has a PhD in anthropology and post-doctoral fellowships in public health and mental health services. Dr. Padgett is known for her expertise in qualitative/mixed methods and is the author of two textbooks in this area. She is an expert on the ‘housing first’ approach to ending homelessness and is first author (along with Ben Henwood and Sam Tsemberis) of a book on housing first (Oxford University Press, 2016). Since 2010, she has been involved in research and services for homeless ‘pavement dwellers’ in India and works with colleagues at The Banyan in Chennai. Since 2023, Dr. Padgett has been collaborating on an unconditional cash transfer experiment with homeless persons in Los Angeles led by Dr. Benjamin Henwood of the University of Southern California. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and former President of the Society for Social Work and Research.

James Riccio, Ph.D., has spent his career in social policy research at MDRC (a New York City-based nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization), most recently as a Principal Research Fellow. He has served as the principal investigator, project director, or senior adviser on a wide range of program and policy evaluations. From 2004 to 2021, he directed MDRC’s Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities policy area, overseeing a large portfolio of studies, including many large-scale randomized trials conducted in cities across the U.S. His research has focused on policy innovations related to employment, cash transfers, safety-net systems, subsidized housing, homelessness, community revitalization, and other policies and programs for disadvantaged groups. The studies have been funded by and involved close collaboration with federal government agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor (DOL), and Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as state and local government agencies and private philanthropies. From 2003-2011, Riccio directed a transatlantic, MDRC-UK research consortium to design and test a new workforce development initiative in England, Scotland, and Wales called the UK Employment Retention and Advancement Demonstration (UK ERA). He currently serves on research or policy advisory groups of several organizations, including the Research Council of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, The Community Builders (a national, nonprofit housing developer), the Methods Advisory Group of the UK Department of Work and Pensions, and the UK’s Independent Commission on Neighborhoods. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University.

Dr. Debra Rog, a Westat vice president and president of the Rockville Institute, is a leader in evaluation with 40 years of experience in evaluating systems, housing, services, and prevention efforts for youth, families, and single adults at risk of or experiencing homelessness. She has served as the principal investigator or project director on evaluations of complex, large-scale, multisite longitudinal initiatives. In addition to homelessness and housing, her work has included evaluations involving youth transitioning from foster care, poverty alleviation and guaranteed income, diaper distribution, mental health, and substance abuse, among others. Attention to equity and including individuals with lived expertise are hallmarks of her more recent studies. Clients have included the Hilton Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Administration on Children and Families, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Center for Mental Health Services, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, among others. In addition to her work at Westat, Dr. Rog serves as the associate director of Claremont University’s Evaluators’ Institute and regularly teaches courses in mixed-methods evaluations and evaluability assessment. She is an editor for several handbooks in evaluation and research methods, and a textbook series of more than 50 books on social research methods, and an author of more than 60 articles for numerous journals. Dr. Rog is active in several professional associations and was the 2009 president of the American Evaluation Association. Prior to joining Westat, Dr. Rog directed the Washington Office for the Vanderbilt University Institute for Public Policy Studies for 17 years and also served as the associate director for the Office for Programs for the Homeless Mentally Ill for the National Institute of Mental Health.

After living in nine different states, Janey developed a passion for tackling some of the most complex challenges facing American cities, from gun violence to police reform to homelessness. During her four-year tenure in the Chicago Mayor’s Office, she witnessed firsthand the power of data and research to transform how public agencies and systems serve people. With that vision in mind, she helped found the California Policy Lab in 2017.

Janey draws on her experiences as a government executive, criminal defense lawyer, nonprofit employee, and public school teacher to lead staff, develop partnerships with government leaders, and launch research projects at CPL. Improving policies and programs to better address the homeless crisis in Los Angeles is a large focus of her work. She is a member of the National Alliance to End Homelessness Research Council, Deputy Director of the Homelessness Policy Research Institute, and also serves on the advisory committee for the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. She is the co-author of several CPL reports on homelessness in Los Angeles, including research focused on predicting and preventing homelessness.

Prior to joining CPL, she was Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Safety where she had direct oversight of the Chicago Police Department, Fire Department and Office of Emergency Management. She also developed policy on a wide set of issues, including police reform, public safety operations, domestic violence, and youth violence prevention in Chicago. To make violence prevention policies more effective, Janey engaged a diverse coalition of partners, including agencies working on school climate, behavioral health, and workforce development. During her tenure in Chicago, Janey worked closely with researchers to evaluate violence prevention programs and scale up the ones that were proven effective.

Before working in the Chicago Mayor’s Office, she served as senior counsel and Firearms Policy Coordinator in Michael Bloomberg’s administration, and helped lead Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In that role she led undercover investigations of illegal gun sales at gun shows and online gun trafficking. She has practiced law, taught high school, and worked in the nonprofit sector. She holds a B.A. from Williams College and a J.D./LL.M from Duke Law School.

Marybeth (Beth) Shinn is a research professor at Vanderbilt University who studies how to prevent and end homelessness. She co-led the first three years of the 12-site Family Options experiment examining approaches to ending family homelessness, was the evaluator for the initial study of the Pathways Housing First program for individuals with serious mental illnesses and developed a model used by New York City to target its homelessness prevention services. Her 2020 book with Jill Khadduri, In the midst of plenty:  Homelessness and what to do about it , surveys research to show that we know how to end homelessness, if we devote the necessary resources to doing so. Current projects include screen for homelessness in Vanderbilt’s emergency room and an unconditional cash transfer to help families with infants leave shelters in New York City. Beth served on Nashville’s Affordable Housing Task Force and Nashville’s Homelessness Planning Council.

Dr. Tsai serves as Research Director for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans and is a Professor of Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He is a licensed clinical psychologist with an additional master’s degree in clinical psychopharmacology. He has served as a direct clinical provider in a posttraumatic stress disorder clinic and on a critical time intervention team. He has received federal grants and published extensively on topics related to homelessness, severe mental illness, trauma, and integrated care models. He serves as Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness and npj Mental Health Research.

Dr. Marisa Zapata is an Associate Professor of land-use planning and Director of the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at Portland State University. She received her Ph.D. in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, her M.U.P. in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and B.A. in anthropology from Rice University.

As an educator, scholar, and planner, Dr. Zapata is committed to achieving spatially based social justice by preparing planners to act in the face of the uncertain and inequitable futures we face. She believes how we use land reflects our social and cultural values.

Dr. Zapata’s research explores three main questions: 1) How can we plan across deeply embedded cultural differences to produce just and sustainable places? 2) How can planners prepare places to act in the face of the multiple futures that may unfold in a given place? and 3) What are the most effective institutional arrangements between governments and civic society to collaborate regionally? She is especially concerned about equitable planning for uncertain futures in highly diverse communities.