Research Symposium

Marisa Zapata, PhD

Dr. Marisa Zapata is an Associate Professor of Land-Use Planning at Portland State University and Director of PSU's Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. 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.

Shannon Singleton, MSW

Shannon Singleton serves as the Director of the Office of Equity and Racial Justice in the Office of Governor Kate Brown. Prior to joining the Governor's Office, she was the Executive Director at JOIN, a nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon, that provides street outreach and housing placement support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness. She has an extensive background in social work and racial justice, with over 20 years of experience in housing, homelessness, and behavioral health in Philadelphia, Taos, San Francisco Bay Area, and Portland.

David Bangsberg, MSc, MD, MPH

David Bangsberg, MSc, MD, MPH is the Founding Dean of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. He was previously a Professor at Harvard School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After completing a Masters Degree in Philosophy of Science from Kings College London and MD at Johns Hopkins, he completed his medical residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in north Harlem to care for patients afflicted by urban poverty and HIV.  Upon moving to the University of California, San Francisco and completing fellowships in infectious disease and AIDS prevention as well as Master's Degrees in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, he became the leading expert in HIV and homelessness. As former Director of Massachusetts General Hospital Global Health, he brought together the expertise of Harvard and MIT to improve physical, mental, social and economic health to the poorest regions of the world. He received the Clifford Barger Mentoring Award, given annually to 5 of the 12,000 Harvard Medical School Faculty. 

Margot Kushel, MD

Margot Kushel, MD is a Professor of Medicine at University of California San Francisco, Division Chief and Director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, and Director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. She is a practicing general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Margot's research focuses on the causes and consequences of homelessness and housing instability, with the goal of preventing and ending homelessness and ameliorating the effects of homelessness on health. Her NIH funded research focuses on aging in the homeless population. She works closely with government bodies, non-profits and communities impacted by homelessness to bring forward solutions that center racial and housing justice. She serves as a Board member of Housing California. 

Rashida Crutchfield, EdD

Dr. Rashida Crutchfield is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at California State University, Long Beach and the newly founded Center for Equitable Higher Education, which is dedicated to studying and promoting economic, food, and housing justice. Dr. Crutchfield was a Principal Investigator for the California State University Office of the Chancellor study on food and housing security. Her work has been instrumental in the development of programs and services for students experiencing housing and food insecurity at all 23 CSU campuses. Dr. Crutchfield has authored or co-authored many articles, including The starving student narrative: How normalizing deprivation reinforces basic need insecurity in higher education. Co-authored with Drs. Ronald Hallett and Jennifer Maguire, her text Addressing Homelessness and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education: Strategies for Educational Leaders is used as a manual for developing programs and services to support student basic needs across the country.

Zeenia Junkeer, ND

Zeenia Junkeer was born in Colombo Sri Lanka and raised in Beaverton, Oregon. Trained as a naturopathic physician, Zeenia has combined her work in social and racial justice advocacy with her training as a physician to work towards equitable health outcomes that center healing through traditional ways of knowing. A double Sagittarius and an avid seeker of the sun, you’ll find Zeenia near water whenever possible.

Katie Sawicki

Katie Sawicki helps projects cross the finish line from planning to completion.  She provides facilitation and individualized support to organizations, coalitions, community groups seeking to advance racial and social justice work. This includes strategic planning; convenings; policy platform and campaign development; policy advocacy; building organizing capacity; and organizational development that centers on communities most impacted by social, economic and health inequities. Her work draws on a decade at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services in New York City and 8 years with the Advocacy and Civic Engagement Department at the Urban League of Portland.  They currently provide support to Oregon Health Equity Alliance (OHEA), Unite Oregon, Rogue Climate, Oregon Justice Transition Alliance, Social Justice Fund and other inspiring movement building organizations.

Sandra Mukasa, MPH, MCP

Sandra is a recent graduate of the concurrent Master of City Planning and Master of Public Health program at UC Berkeley. Sandra’s academic and professional work focuses on contributing to cross-sector solutions that improve living conditions and health equity in our communities through research, advocacy, and policy implementation.

Rachel Fyall, Phd

Dr. Fyall’s primary research context is publicly subsidized low-income housing, including the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and various homelessness interventions. She is a faculty affiliate of the West Coast Poverty Center and the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, both at UW. Rachel is also the Faculty Chair of the Urban@UW Homelessness Research Initiative. Rachel holds a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from Indiana University, an M.P.A. from George Washington University (nonprofit management concentration), and a B.A. in Sociology and Latin American Studies from Wesleyan University. Before pursuing her doctorate, Fyall worked in housing policy at the Housing Development Consortium in Seattle. She previously worked at the Technology Access Foundation (Seattle) and has professional and volunteer experience in a variety of other nonprofit organizations.

Christina McHugh, MA, MPP

Christina McHugh is the Regional Housing and Homelessness Evaluation Manager at King County’s Department of Community and Human Services. Christina leads the County’s efforts to study the effectiveness of King County’s regional homeless response system, homelessness prevention programs, affordable housing policy and programs, and COVID-19 response. She has more than a decade of experience evaluating social programs, including studies for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, U.S. Department of Labor, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Christina holds a Master of Public Policy and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Jacob Wagner, PhD

Dr. Jacob A. Wagner is an Associate Professor of Urban Planning + Design, the Director of the Urban Studies Program, and Faculty Director and Co-founder of the UMKC Center for Neighborhoods. Dr. Wagner teaches courses in urban planning and urban studies focused on neighborhood planning, equity and community development in the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning + Design (AUPD). He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Urban Design and the National Research Advisory Board for the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at Portland State University.

Erin Royals

Erin Royals is the Neighborhood Research and Outreach Coordinator at UMKC Center for Neighborhoods, Department of Architecture, Urban Planning + Design. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her work sits at the intersection of urban geography, planning and public policy, and black geographies. Her dissertation project examines the securitization of Westport and its effects. Prior to beginning her PhD, she worked for the City of Kansas City, Missouri as an urban planner in Housing and Neighborhood Services. Erin holds a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning with a concentration in housing and community development from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. In her free time, Erin plays rugby for the Kansas City Jazz.

Katricia Stewart, PhD

Katricia is a Senior Policy Analyst with Homebase, a non-profit consulting and technical assistance firm that supports communities across the country in ending homelessness. She brings her expertise as a community psychologist to a variety of community-based work, including research, evaluations, strategic plans, gaps analyses, capacity-building, and engaging people with lived experiences of homelessness as experts on solutions to homelessness. She is a graduate of Portland State University and previously supported the research being presented by the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative.

Olya Glantsman, PhD

Dr. Olya Glantsman is the Program Director for the Community Psychology MS Program at DePaul University and a Sr. Professional Lecture. Her major areas of interest include cultural diversity, improving academic settings for students and faculty, food and housing insecurity on college campuses, community Psychology values, teaching of psychology, and addiction and recovery.

Luciano Berardi, PhD

Dr. Berardi holds a license in clinical psychology from Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires, Argentina and a Ph.D. in community psychology from DePaul University.  He is currently the Director for TRiO Programs and Access Research at the Center for Access and Attainment, at DePaul.  His research focus on issues regarding educational transition of historically underrepresented groups in higher education, mentoring in academic settings, and issues of access, safety and disparities in education.  He serves as an affiliate faculty member at DePaul’s Community Psychology M.S. and Ph.D., and as an Adjunct faculty at the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Research, College of Education, DePaul University. Overall, his work centers on fostering academic success and improving academic environments for underrepresented students transitioning through higher education.

Matt Fowle

Matt Fowle’s research interests focus on the role of public policies and institutions in shaping housing security among low-income households. His dissertation uses qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the causes, reproduction, and consequences of racial inequality in homelessness. Matt entered the Evans School Ph.D. program in Public Policy & Management in 2017. Prior to joining the program, he earned an MPA from the Evans School. Matt is a co-founder of HomelessDeathsCount.org, a community research project to collect nationwide data on mortality among people experiencing homelessness.

Christopher Weare, PhD

Brian Chan, MD

In addition to his work as a faculty member in SPH, Dr. Chan is an Assistant Professor and clinician-investigator in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and a member of Addiction Medicine at the OHSU School of Medicine. Dr. Chan evaluates and designs health service interventions to improve care for medically and socially complex patients with a focus on substance use disorder. He also works as a primary care physician at Central City Concern in Portland, with a focus on people adversely affected by poverty, homelessness and addiction.

Rev. Seth Pickens, EdD

Seth's eclectic professional journey includes his current stint as Director and Principal Investigator of the Realization Project. In this capacity, he works as an advocate, service provider, and researcher on housing security, with an emphasis on employment and well-being. A diversity and inclusion expert, Seth has also worked as an elementary school teacher, counselor, Peace Corps Volunteer, and for over a decade as a Baptist senior pastor. Known for his wry, personable teaching style, Seth most recently co-authored Locked Out: Unemployment and Homelessness in the Covid Economy (Economic Roundtable, 2021). He and Isis, his wife of 15 years, have a teenage son and daughter.

Raven Drake

Raven moved to Portland in December of 2019 going to work with Street Roots, in March developing and running their coronavirus action team. After writing the camp proposal with Kaia Sand, she joined the C3PO coalition becoming the medical program coordinator. Recently stepping down as the coordinator to return to Street Roots to become the Ambassador Program Manager.

Raven spends most of her free time writing and planning new ways to advocate for those living out on the streets. As someone who lived through Houselessness herself, she holds a passion for this work.