Denis Bocquet
Senior Researcher, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech

Denis Bocquet is a senior researcher in urban and regional studies with Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (LATTS), where is also teaches urban theory. He published extensively on European cities, with a specific focus on Rome, Paris and Berlin.

Franco Corsico
Politecnico di Torino

Franco Corsico has been Professor of Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Torino since 1972. From 2001 to 2004, he was member of the Presidency Committee of the 1st Faculty of Architecture at the Politecnico of Torino (2002 – 2005) Professor and Coordinator of the Module “The Wide Area Mobility” within the Master in “Transport and sustainable mobility” at the COREP – Politecnico of Torino. From 1993 to 2001 he was City Councilman responsible for the Urban Asset – Urban Planning, transport, road system and roadwork of the Municipality of Torino.

Colleen Haggerty
Senior Vice President, Bank of America

Colleen Haggerty is Senior Vice President at Bank of America, responsible for media relations with a focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), community and economic development, and microlending.  She also has an emphasis on rebuilding the corporate brand in the bank’s largest market of California, and previously helped develop and execute the company’s media launch of its $20 billion environmental business initiative.  Prior to joining Bank of America in 2007, Colleen was the Director of Communications at Fannie Mae, and press secretary in Washington DC and California for United States Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congresswoman Jane Harman. In 2010, she became an American Marshall Memorial Fellow on transatlantic relations with the German Marshall Fund, and is a member of the International Women in Journalism Foundation and the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

Sandra J. Newman, Ph.D.
Director and Professor of Policy Studies
Joint appointment, Department of Sociology 
Joint appointment, Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Newman holds an M.U.P. and Ph.D. in urban planning from New York University. She was a Fulbright Senior Fellow at the Australian National University and a Visiting Scholar in the research office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Newman’s research is interdisciplinary, and focuses on the intersection of housing, employment, welfare and health. Her recent projects have been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Neal Peirce
Citistates

Neal Peirce is a foremost writer, among American journalists, on metropolitan regions — their political and economic dynamics, their emerging national and global roles. With Curtis Johnson, he has co-authored the Peirce Reports (now called Citistates Reports) on compelling issues of metropolitan futures for leading media in more than 20 regions across the nation. Reports of recent years include Boston Unbound, released in May 2004, a report on the San Diego-Tijuana citistate area for San Diego Magazine, South Florida for the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Kansas City for the Kansas City Star, and South Texas for the San Antonio Express-News. A current project underway (2007) is for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier. In 2004-2006, Peirce took a lead role in conceptualizing and launching the New England Futures Project, starting with a six-part monthly Peirce-Johnson series — printed by 27 newspapers — focused on how that that historic six-state region deals with its 21st century energy, transportation, growth, higher education, broadband and health challenges

Sabine Suess
Executive Director, Schader Stiftung

Julie Wagner
Non-resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Julie Wagner, a Non Resident Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution, is a trained city planner with an expertise in long- and short-range land use planning, public involvement, and land use conflict resolution.  Currently based in Milan, Italy, Ms. Wagner is currently working on multiple European planning and policy evaluation projects.  These projects include: evaluating the effectiveness of the European Commission’s efforts to infuse strong economic rationality into policy proposals and instructing eight European cities—ranging from Athens to Warsaw—on how to infuse public involvement into large-scale urban regeneration projects.  For the Brookings Institution, Ms. Wagner is orchestrating how to visually and logically argue for a new federal agenda that targets the country’s top 100 metros to advance national prosperity and competitiveness.  Previously, she served as the Deputy Planning Director, Long Range Planning for Washington DC, where she led the development of DC’s first long range strategic plan.  Ms. Wagner holds a Masters in City Planning from MIT.