Laura leads development of place-based strategic plans, actionable economic development strategies, and market studies for cultural institutions and parks.

Based in HR&A’s New York office, Laura supports market and demand studies, placemaking strategies, as well as governance analyses for projects such as a large mixed-use redevelopment in Portland, Oregon, and a new cultural institution in upstate New York.

Laura studied urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a focus on City Design and Development and researched diverse issues such as the post-pandemic public realm and the role of place brands in changing neighborhoods. While at MIT, she had experiences as the Summer Associate at Hudson Companies, where she managed the pre-development phase for an affordable housing development in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Laura was the Carbon-Neutral Buildings Fellow at the City of Boston, where she supported community engagement processes leading up to Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance 2.0. She spent a semester in South Korea working on a creative Public-Private Partnership strategy for abandoned public buildings and helped build a rooftop skatepark. She has also served as a Teaching Assistant for Intro to Urban Design and Development at MIT.

Prior to planning school, Laura had five years of experience as a brand strategist in NYC. She has crafted brand narratives and marketing campaign executions for clients such as Bank of America, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Organic Valley. She also enjoys writing about cities with a published column and posts in various publications.

Laura holds a Master in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in International Comparative Studies from Duke University.

Tajae informs, develops, and implements innovative recruitment strategies for both consulting and non-consulting roles.

Prior to joining HR&A, Tajae worked at the City College of New York, where she managed the hiring, training, and onboarding of Ambassadors for the Admissions Department. She also supported the Recruitment team by facilitating communication with external community organizations to strengthen institutional partnerships.

Tajae holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Baruch College’s Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and Management from the City College of New York. She is also a proud Colin Powell Partners for Change Health Justice Fellow.

Adina works on projects to create more inclusive cities, build digital equity, and advocate for criminal justice reform. She is guided by the principle that where you live should not determine your quality of life.

As an Analyst, Adina started her work at HR&A as a core team member of the NYC Speaks project, a civic engagement initiative designed to translate the ideas of New Yorkers into meaningful policies and help inform the priorities of the mayoral administration. Adina has always been drawn to this type of community-based work, where rigorous analysis of data produces actionable solutions to the most critical challenges facing our communities.

Adina graduated in 2020 with a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, and is interested in the intersection between urban planning and community health outcomes. Previously, she has worked for the No Boundaries Coalition, a nonprofit and advocacy organization, where she worked to help launch sustainable food markets to improve health outcomes in west Baltimore. In addition, she has experience in community organizing in the Bronx, Public Health research, and in the real estate & mortgage industry in NYC. Adina hopes to reconcile her diverse interests and background through her work at HR&A. As a longtime resident of New York City, Adina is excited to work with New York office colleagues to tackle the complex challenges facing the city.

Sam helps HR&A tell its story — guiding our communications strategy to support intentional growth and advance our mission.

Sam brings over a decade of experience working with professional services firms to develop compelling messaging, strong visual identity, and effective marketing and communications strategies. Prior to joining HR&A, she managed Marketing and Communications Teams for architectural firms Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and WRNS Studio, stewarding the organizations through significant business transitions via strategic planning and thoughtful brand development. In these roles, as well as others with professional service firms like LaunchSquad and Forell/Elsesser Engineers, Sam helped create brand standards, refreshed websites, marketing collateral libraries, and editorial calendars to support recruitment and business development.

Sam’s professional career is bolstered by her personal art practice and volunteer work with arts organizations like the Industrial Arts Workshop in Pittsburgh and the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. Her art practice often incorporates photography and written narrative to explore themes like empathy, identity, and our relationship with the natural world.

Sam holds a Masters in Design from the Glasgow School of Art and a Bachelors in English from UCLA.

Tara coordinates the overall operations of HR&A’s financial processes.

Prior to joining HR&A, Tara worked as Head Bookkeeper at Brocade Creations, where she managed the accounts, secured revenue, and managed the business’s cash flow, accurately verifying and processing all monetary transactions. Tara holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Saint Thomas Aquinas College.

Austin is a Senior Analyst based in HR&A’s Raleigh office, where he leads and manages analytical tasks for HR&A’s transit-oriented development, housing affordability, cultural capital, and real estate projects.

Across all of his work, Austin center’s HR&A’s mission to make cities function better for the residents that inhabit them. This includes enhancing the quality of multi-modal transportation through thoughtful development patterns, advising clients on how to better deliver and maintain affordable housing, and leveraging real estate value to celebrate and honor the history, arts, and culture of culturally significant neighborhoods throughout the country.

Since joining HR&A, he has supported numerous affordable housing transactions through our support of Amazon’s Housing Equity Fund and public sector partners, enabling the delivery of over 4,100 affordable homes and deployment of over $450 million in gap financing. He has also worked with numerous cities in developing plans to address their housing affordability needs, including Memphis, Raleigh, Holly Springs, Athens, and Greensboro.

Austin also supports cities throughout the southeast, including Atlanta, Raleigh, and Richmond, in developing plans for transformative transit-oriented development and establishing thoughtful implementation strategies to realize those plans. His work includes supporting the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) to develop and implement a plan to construct a permanent Downtown Transfer Hub that will advance transit-oriented development (TOD) in Downtown Richmond. He also worked with the Maryland Department of Transportation to craft a TOD plan for the MARC Penn Line commuter rail line that connects Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland.

Further, Austin is a leading member of HR&A’s Raleigh office, ensuring that we are supporting the communities where we have a significant physical presence. He has worked with GoTriangle to support the development of the Raleigh Union Station (RUS) Bus Facility, the City of Greensboro in developing an update to their affordable housing plan, Gateway Research Park in Greensboro to undergo a visioning exercise for their innovation campus, and the City of Raleigh Museum to craft an expansion strategy as they aim to find a permanent location for their space. He is also a former local government appointed volunteer, serving on the Durham Planning Commission for three years, including two years as Chair.

Ana provides guidance to government and community leaders on closing the digital divide and implementing an equitable broadband future.

Ana is a leader in the Broadband Equity Partnership where she supports projects working to provide effective, efficient, and equitable broadband. Before joining HR&A, she worked in the Office of Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves with the California Public Utilities Commission, analyzing broadband access and the digital divide highlighted by COVID-19. Ana began her career working with the Obama White House Office of Presidential Personnel where she led leadership and professional development programs for over 3,000 political appointees. Since then, Ana has bridged advocacy efforts with government support on local, state, and federal levels. She has supported research on various policy issues in her capacity at the Arizona State Senate, the City of Oakland, and the California State Assembly Committee on Budget.

Ana holds a Masters of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies, and a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Arizona State University. Ana is also a graduate from the Public Policy and International Affairs Program at Princeton University.

Ejiro leads analytical and research support for projects at the intersection of resilient infrastructure, community empowerment, and environmental restoration.

She works across various HR&A practice areas, including Inclusive Cities, Climate, and Parks & Open Space. In her recent projects, she focuses on advancing a just transition, conducting inclusive community outreach, fostering cultural equity in placemaking and policy, ensuring public safety through community investments, and supporting small businesses in emerging, green industries.

Prior to HR&A, she supported projects that focused on identifying populations that are the most susceptible to climate change and proposed solutions that uplift the needs and agencies of these groups. Previously, as a Research Assistant at Penn’s Institute of Urban Research, she proposed a green port system for the Galapagos Islands. She received a Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Earth Sciences from the same university.