Andra Ghent is a Professor of Finance at the University of Utah where she holds the Ivory-Boyer Chair in Real Estate. She is the Academic Director of the Ivory-Boyer Real Estate Center. Her current research interests are real estate finance, financial intermediation, and urban economics. Her research has been cited in US congressional testimony and by media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, and Bloomberg. Her research has been published in top academic journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Management Science, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Review of Financial Studies. She is an Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics.

Caitlin is Vice President of Underwriting & Credit at Freddie Mac. Caitlin leads the teams responsible for underwriting structured transactions, supporting investor credit due diligence and managing credit policy, part of Risk Distribution & Credit. In collaboration with Production, her team executes innovative portfolio-level financing solutions for lenders and borrowers and works with the Capital Markets team to provide collateral information and analysis to credit bond investors. The credit policy team works across the Division to provide a framework for managing risk associated with purchasing loans and provisioning credit enhancements. In partnership with the Mission, Policy & Strategy team, Caitlin also oversees the development of multifamily supply focused activities in the Equitable Housing Finance Plan. Caitlin has over 15 years of experience in commercial real estate underwriting and credit investing.

Chris Gamvroulas is the president of Ivory Development, overseeing land acquisition and development for Ivory Homes. Since joining in 1993, he has managed the planning, entitlement, and construction of over 20,000 home sites and commercial properties valued at nearly $2 billion. Chris holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Utah and completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program. Chris has been recognized with various awards, including Utah Business Magazine’s “40 Under Forty” and the Salt Lake Chamber’s “Chamber Champion” award. He serves on numerous civic and industry boards.

Dan Ticona leads the Expanding Sustainable Homeownership and Mission Innovation team within Freddie Mac’s Single-Family Acquisitions division. Focused on identifying and incubating new product offerings, programs or services that foster sustainable homeownership and deliver on our affordable housing mission, his team takes data-driven approaches to inform innovative concepts or solutions for long-standing housing industry challenges and housing supply issues.

Edward Becker is an architect, scholar, and timber industry specialist. He is a registered architect in Finland, an Associate Professor at Virginia Tech, and a Harvard graduate whose sustainability-focused research and teaching have focused on prefabrication and modular housing construction in wood.

Gary Geiler is the Assistant Director for the City of San Diego’s Development Services Department. He leads the Land Development, Planning and Building Divisions and acts as the Department liaison with the Mayor and City Council Offices. He was instrumental in the formulation and implementation of the City’s ADU Permit Program, which received the 2023 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability in the Policy and Regulatory Reform category. Prior to joining the City, he was a Local Government Advisor in the Czech Republic as a US Peace Corps Volunteer. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California at San Diego and a Masters of Planning from the University of Virginia Graduate School of Architecture.

Heather Miksch is Villa's VP of Operations, responsible for the team that takes a project from initial signing, through site design, permitting, construction, and close out. Prior to Villa, Heather was the SVP of Operations at Canvas Construction, a start up focusing on revolutionizing commercial drywall construction, where she scaled the installation base of the company from "Bay Area only" to nine states and Guantanamo Bay. Prior to Canvas, Heather held leadership positions in operations, supply chain, and customer service teams at a number of high tech start ups and Fortune 500 companies, focusing primarily on life sciences, laboratory analysis and industrial 3D printing. Heather holds a MA from the University of York, England, and a BA from the College of William and Mary.

Jenny Song is a partner with Navitas Capital, leading investments in transformative technology for the built environment across vertical AI and climatetech. Prior to Navitas, she was a founder and operator at an education technology start-up. Jenny started her career in strategy consulting at Bain & Company, where she managed strategy and investment diligence engagements across sectors including retail, supply chain and industrials. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School, and a Bachelor’s of Science from Northwestern University.

John Peavey is the Director of the Building Science Division at Home Innovation Research Labs in Washington DC. Prior to re-joining the Home Innovation Research Laboratory, Peavey provided consulting services to various clients, led building codes and standards development for the AIA, and developed new products for Louisiana Pacific Corp (LP), CertainTeed, and two subsidiaries of Masco Corporation. He started his professional career with 3M as a mechanical engineer. Peavey is a licensed Professional Engineer (Mechanical). He holds both an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Art and Design (with emphasis in Building Technology) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kent Colton is the President of K. Colton LLC and a former Senior Scholar at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. He has more than 30 years of experience as a housing scholar and expert in the field of mortgage finance and housing policy. From 1984 to 1999, Kent was the Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. Before that, he served as an executive vice president of Freddie Mac for policy, planning and economic research. He was a member of the Millennial Housing Commission, and staff director of the President's Commission on Housing. A graduate of Utah State University, Colton received an M.P.A. from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from MIT.

Laurie Goodman is an Institute Fellow and Founder of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. The Center offers data-driven analyses of housing finance issues. Previously, Goodman served as a Senior Managing Director at Amherst Securities, a boutique broker-dealer focused on securitized products. She spent 15 years at UBS, focusing primarily on securitized products research. Goodman also held roles within other firms such as Merrill Lynch, Eastbridge Capital, Goldman Sachs, and Citi, as well as serving as Senior Economist within the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Goodman holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a Master’s and PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Paige Roosa is the Director of the Mayor’s Housing Innovation Lab in Boston, where she leads efforts to test new housing policies and designs to increase affordability. She has a strong passion for how land use and housing policies impact economic opportunity and quality of life, shaped by her connection to Boston's North End. Before this role, Paige created a housing stability department in Richmond, California, and worked as a Senior Development Review Planner in Santa Barbara County. She holds a Master of City Planning from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor’s in plant biology from Cornell University.

Shkëlqim Kelmendi is the Founder and CEO of Housing Connector, a nonprofit working to increase affordable housing access for those in need by addressing financial and residency challenges. Housing Connector was a 2023 Ivory Prize Finalist. With a background in economics, he previously worked with the Seattle Housing Authority and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Shkëlqim, a refugee from the Kosovo War, is deeply committed to community service and serves on the boards of United Way of King County and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Shkëlqim is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and a member of the Harvard Business School Young American Leaders program.