Miriam is interested in creating equitable, resilient communities via inclusive economic development planning.

Miriam is an Arkansas native who relocated to Atlanta in 2021. Growing up in rural Arkansas, her experience in grassroots organizing for immigrant communities around the state is where her passion for community development began. Growing up in a small one-factory town and navigating equity issues in Arkansas’s Hispanic immigrant communities pushed Miriam to explore solutions that would help communities rise above systemic disparity, which led her to economic development planning.

At HR&A, Miriam is interested in supporting our Inclusive Cities, Urban Tech and Innovation, and RealEstate Advisory practices. She welcomes the opportunity to learn how to create equitable, resilient communities for the benefit of all, while also encouraging growth and systematic change within the communities we advise.

Miriam earned her Master’s in City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, with concentrations in Economic Development and Land Use.

Stefan provides analytical support and subject matter expertise across a range of transformative urban infrastructure and real estate projects focusing on transit-oriented development and adaptive reuse.

Stefan has a demonstrated history of working between government and private sector stakeholders, drawing on a deeply cross-disciplinary background in architecture, geospatial analysis, and sustainability research. He has built a specialization in public-private partnership, helping clients to deliver implementation strategies and benefits analysis for complex transportation and urban infrastructure projects.

Based out of HR&A’s New York office, Stefan has worked across US markets and abroad and works with clients to integrate scientific research and technical analysis into strategic planning. Prior to joining HR&A, Stefan supported capital project implementation at the City of Rochester, NY.

Kwabene advises state and local governments on how to leverage real estate and economic development to promote thriving communities.

Joe provides research and analytical support for housing and economic development projects.

Prior to joining HR&A, Joe spent six years on the Research team at the Tennessee Housing Development Agency. There, he advised agency program divisions in policy decisions and programmatic evaluations. He also produced public-facing research reports on housing issues of broader public interest.

Joe holds a Master’s in Public Policy Analysis from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics, with a concentration in Urban Studies, from Macalester College.

Francis is an affordable housing practitioner and urban planner. She brings national and international real estate policy, finance, and development experience centered on creating equitable cities and communities.

Prior to joining HR&A, Francis was an Associate Developer at Pennrose, one of the largest affordable housing developers in the country, where she worked as a project manager on mixed-use, mixed-income deals across New England. Francis previously worked at MassHousing, the Massachusetts’ housing finance agency, where she created new supply- and demand-side policies and programs to address housing challenges and narrow the racial homeownership gap. Francis has also worked as a consultant with The World Bank, providing research, analysis, and recommendations for new housing finance policies and programs in Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Maldives.

Her prior work includes housing collaborations with resettled war refugees in Colombia, Jordan, and Uganda, disenfranchised indigenous communities in Guyana, incarcerated men in California, and rural-to-urban immigrants in Ecuador and Myanmar.

Francis holds a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Eddie Joe provides research, analysis, and strategy to projects related to economic development and public policy with an eye toward creative solutions.

Eddie Joe brings a background in design, computation, and visual communication to projects of diverse scales. His analysis has guided narratives on economic impact and supported strategies for public policy initiatives. For public clients ranging from large states to small cities, Eddie Joe has built public-facing dashboards and other digital tools that use strong visuals and interactivity to explain complicated civic issues. A native New Yorker, Eddie Joe has advised clients in his hometown on neighborhood-level development strategies, as well as in other large cities across the country on retail tenanting initiatives.

Before joining HR&A, Eddie Joe worked as a landscape and urban designer for Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, where he helped conduct outreach, execute design drawings, and enrich streetscapes and green spaces in projects across New York City. He also apprenticed as a furniture designer in Mexico City, where he split time between a design studio and production environment.

Eddie Joe received a Masters of Science in Computational Design Practices from Columbia University and a Bachelors of Arts in Architecture from Yale University. His graduate thesis explored opportunities to enhance streetside usage of the LinkNYC system and prototyped an immersive, 3D-web storytelling format.

Anika leverages her cross-sector experience to plan for more equitable, just, and accessible cities. She is passionate about centering joy, healing, and environmental justice in her work.

Prior to joining HR&A, Anika worked for the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard. She also interned with the United Nations’ Urban Mobility team in Nairobi, Kenya to develop sustainable urban mobility plans and accessibility guides for walkable streets. Anika is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, where she has worked for their Planning Department’s Office of Sustainability, coordinating the City’s Connecting Children to Nature program to advance equitable access to green space and forming partnerships between mental health and environmental programs. Anika was also formerly a summer fellow with HR&A.

Anika holds a Masters in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science & Policy and Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.

Kirthi brings her background in research, geospatial analysis, and data science to support our inclusive cities, housing affordability, and transit-oriented development practice areas.

Prior to joining HR&A, Kirthi served as a research assistant at Columbia University, where her work focused on developing a computer vision tool to empower planners to leverage street view imagery, commerce data, and geospatial analytics for the ethnographic study of enclaves in major US cities. During her time at the Center for Spatial Research, she focused on leveraging data to uncover valuable insights and inform evidence-based decision-making, and translated complex data sets into visualizations that effectively communicated information to diverse stakeholders. At SOM, she contributed to urban planning and design initiatives alongside the New York and Washington D.C. teams. Additionally, she gained valuable experience during internships at architectural firms in India and Japan while pursuing her undergraduate degree while also freelancing as a UI/UX designer.

Kirthi holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Anna University.

A native Washingtonian Lea brings 10 years of administrative background from assisting with high-ranking government officials to tech, and small business in previous roles.

Lea manages the DC office while also overseeing our North Carolina, and Atlanta offices. From managing calendars, travel arrangements, and whatever other admins’ needs come her way while keeping the office intact!