Empowering Communities for Resilience and Sustainable Growth

Meaghan Kennedy, MPH founded Orange Sparkle Ball after graduating from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and conducting HIV research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Orange Sparkle Ball is an innovation and impact consultancy that accelerates initiatives in the private and public sector, as well as works with startups. Meaghan has taught at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has been a guest reviewer at Georgia Tech since 2007, a judge and mentor for the Global Social Venture Competition and Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), a mentor for social entrepreneurs and is frequently invited to sit on innovation and entrepreneurial panels. 

Based in Washington D.C., Chelsea currently serves as the Legislative Director for the National Indian Gaming Association. In this role, she builds and maintain relationships with Congressional offices, the Federal agencies, and other BIPOC organizations to effectively advocate for the policy priorities of the Association’s member tribes. She develops policy recommendations, legislative outreach strategies, and oversees communications and branding efforts for the organization.

In her personal time, Chelsea serves as the Director of External Affairs and the Capital Region's Interim Vice-Chair for the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, the largest national affiliation of Filipino American institutions, umbrella organizations, and individuals. She previously served on the Board of Directors for the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership, which provides invaluable placements for AAPI students to experience federal service first-hand

Colin Foard is a manager with Pew’s fiscal federalism initiative, leading the project’s research into state and federal spending on natural disasters and other topics. He also engages stakeholders to improve understanding of the federal-state fiscal relationship and ensure that policymakers have data and evidence to inform their decision-making.

Before joining Pew, Foard spent five years on the staff of a senior member of the U.S. House of Representatives’ appropriations and budget committees, handling committee work as well as a broad policy portfolio that included homeland security, transportation, housing, and immigration issues. He also served as a congressional constituent caseworker and field representative in Oakland, California.

Foard holds a bachelor’s degree from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and a master’s in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jake Akervik, MS, PMP, is an Analyst for Community Initiatives with the US Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Minneapolis Office of Field Policy & Management. In addition to leading HUD Midwest Region OZs efforts, he also serves as the Federal Liaison to the North Minneapolis Promise Zone initiative. Jake has spent the past five years helping Federal, Tribal, and local partners and stakeholders across the country, state, and Twin Cities metro build place-based and collective impact efforts around a range of issues, including racial equity, affordable housing, living-wage job creation, minority entrepreneurship, community health, public safety, education, civic engagement, the opioid epidemic, technology, data, innovation, and more. Jake holds an AA from Minneapolis College; a BS from the University of Minnesota; a MS from the University of Denver; and numerous program and project management certifications.

Born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, Basma came to the U.S. with her husband as a refugee in 2010, leaving behind her career as an engineer with the Ministry of Oil within the Government of Iraq. As a refugee and activist, her stories and activism have been featured in the media. Most recently, she was nominated to be one of the Athena40 women in the world who are leading change and was the recipient of the 2019 OneJax Humanitarian Award. She was also elected the Florida delegate for the  Refugee Congress and is a board member of USAHello (formerly, Refugee Center Online) and many other nonprofits. Currently, she is the State Refugee Organizer with the Florida Immigrant Coalition and resides in Jacksonville and the co- founder for WeaveTales.

Matthew Dalbey is a proven thought leader in developing community-driven economic revitalization strategies at the local, state, and federal level. These strategies focus on identifying economic drivers, build on existing assets, and supports economic growth that improves environmental and human health outcomes. His recent efforts at EPA have focused on supporting economic revitalization and environmental protection in economically distressed communities, including those with Opportunity Zones. Upon joining EPA in 2004, he focused on collaborating with private sector developers interested in meeting growing market demand, and providing technical assistance to help cities and towns, particularly rural ones, leverage new development to support better health, clean air, and clean water outcomes.  In 2010, he joined the leadership team in what was then the Office of Sustainable Communities, where he led a series of partnership efforts with other federal agencies and states to support a cleaner environment, more efficient public investments in communities, and economic revitalization. In 2012 and 2013 as the deputy director of a White House initiative, he oversaw much of the day-to-day work supporting multi-agency, coordinated technical assistance in several metropolitan areas, including Fresno, Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, and Memphis. Since 2014 he has led the office that is now called the Office of Community Revitalization. Prior to joining EPA, Matthew was an assistant professor at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.  He has a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from Columbia University, Masters degrees in City Planning and Architectural History from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the College of William & Mary. He is a career civil servant and part of the Senior Executive Service (SES).

Patrick Corrigan is a Senior Advisor at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Performing the Duties of the Controller.

Prior to joining OMB, Patrick worked for over 25 years at three financial services firms (i.e. Bankers Trust, Deutsche Bank and Barclays Investment Bank) in a variety of roles within Operations, Trading and Risk. Most recently, he was the Chief Operating Officer / Business Manager for the US Rates business at Barclays Investment Bank.

Prior to his financial services experience, Patrick was an Auditor with Ernst & Young where he audited the New York City Housing Authority and a variety of financial services firms.

Patrick is a graduate of the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he was the President of Beta Alpha Psi (Honor Society for Accounting, Finance and Information Systems Students). He is a Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Financial Planner™ as well as a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

When he is not in Washington, DC, Patrick resides with his wife and four children in Garden City, NY. Patrick likes to spend his free time volunteering as a youth sports coach in Garden City and is an Honorary Usher at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

Linda uses data to create narratives in a product focused on rebuilding local economies.

Previously, she was a Global Risk rotational analyst at Citigroup, implementing machine learning algorithms (gradient-boosting decision trees and neural networks) to create forward-looking financial performance views. She also wrote scripts to automate daily trade reporting with Citigroup’s hedge fund clients and developed strategies for business transformation in Citi’s Global Consumer Bank.

Linda graduated with high honors from UC Berkeley with a BA in Economics and a BS in Business Administration. She enjoys sailing, skiing, Python programming, and knitting.

As a member of the product team at Citi Ventures, Ryan creates new products and services delivering innovative solutions within the domains of banking and finance.

Previously, Ryan led product development at Condé Nast Entertainment where he focused on the video initiatives of Condé Nast brands such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and WIRED in order to drive increased engagement, growth, and monetization. Ryan started his career designing and developing award-winning iOS and Android apps for iHeartRadio, WebMD, and LACMA.

Ryan graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in Literature and Music and received a M.M. in Composition from the USC Thornton School of Music. Outside of work, Ryan loves reading, visiting museums, and writing music.

Michelle A. Zee is an MA Candidate at Columbia University, studying applied statistics in the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences program. She joined her master’s program with experience in strategic planning and implementation for international business expansions in North America, Asia, and Australia. Most recently, she served as the Director of Real Estate Development for a development firm with projects in New York, Texas, California, and a dozen countries outside of the U.S.. Michelle is now combining her business acumen with the latest data analytical techniques, to create better systems for problem solving and contribute to research in strategic management and decision making.

In her free time, Michelle enjoys running in parks in New York City and along the Hudson River.

Joe leverages more than 20 years of experience in land use and transportation planning in leading the development and deployment of the UrbanFootprint modeling platform. His career has focused on the implementation of actionable, data-driven tools that bring critical information to land use planning decisions, energy and water resource choices, and the environmental, public health, and social equity challenges of our times. Joe has presented extensively across the US and abroad on sustainable land use and transportation planning and modeling.