Ada Peng provides implementation and financing strategies in the realm of public-private partnership, housing and real estate development.

Ada brings her background and experiences in housing and real estate development to HR&A’s real estate advisory practice. She assists public agencies, non-profits, and private developers to achieve their long-term vision with a practical approach suitable for the market condition.

Prior to joining HR&A, Ada contributed to three large-scale mixed-use developments in Southern California with residential, hotel, office, retail, and entertainment components. Her role included financial analysis and project management throughout the full development cycle— from master entitlement, to project positioning, construction, lease-up, and disposition. Ada was previously a graduate student researcher at UCLA, focusing on Asian-American asset building and housing disparity issues.

Ada received her Master of Public Policy from University of California, Los Angeles, and holds a Bachelor of Social Science in Policy and Public Administration with a minor in Economics from the City University of Hong Kong. Ada is an active member of the Urban Land Institute, championing the Diversity Committee and Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Los Angeles chapter.

Ethan leverages his expertise in place-based strategic planning and impact analysis to guide the implementation of transformative urban projects and initiatives.

Ethan is deeply involved in the company’s place-based work in AAPI neighborhoods. He guided the deployment of $20 million in state funding to capital projects in Manhattan’s Chinatown as part of Round 5 of New York State’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). Following the completion of the DRI planning process, he developed a programming and operations strategy for Welcome to Chinatown’s Small Business Innovation Hub, a resource center for legacy businesses and entrepreneurs.

Beyond his work with AAPI communities, Ethan develops governance plans, feasibility assessments, and operating budgets that empower clients to deliver impactful projects and initiatives in cities.

Ethan also advises clients on how to communicate the benefits they provide to urban communities through their operations and programming. He has quantified the economic and fiscal impacts for a range of clients, including Con Edison, LinkNYC, and URBAN-X (BMW-MINI’s urban tech accelerator).

Prior to joining HR&A’s New York Office, Ethan interned at Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, where he conducted market, transit, and demographic research to inform stakeholders of current and future real estate development opportunities within the Business Improvement District. He also supported wayfinding and transportation accessibility initiatives during his internship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.

Ethan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies and a Minor in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis. His senior honors thesis and GIS study evaluated the real estate development practices of urban universities through social, economic, racial, and spatial lenses.

Christiana advises public and private sector clients on strategies and policies to support healthy housing markets, promote fair access to housing and encourage the clean energy transition. 

Christiana brings her background in housing and real estate economics and policy to lead projects that enable both public and private sector actors to support healthy, fair and resilient housing markets nationally. 

With a belief that fair access to high-quality housing should be a local, state, and federal policy priority, Christiana supports public sector clients to understand the challenges and opportunities in their housing markets, prioritize amongst them, and test land use, funding, energy and infrastructure strategies and policies to address them. 

Christiana’s work also includes analysis and support for the broad range of private sector and non-profit actors that impact housing affordability and the clean energy transition in the residential building sector, from strategies to increase multifamily electrification uptake for utilities to policy and impact analysis for housing and real estate advocacy organizations. 

In addition to her client work, Christiana helps lead HR&A’s digital products strategy and promotes research and development of digital tools to support planning and increase public access to information about the built environment. 

Prior to joining HR&A, Christiana led housing and real estate analysis for UrbanSim. Christiana holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley with a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate, and a Bachelor’s in Government and Legal Studies from Bowdoin College. 

Sulin Carling advises public and private sector clients on creating vibrant downtowns, flourishing commercial corridors, and dynamic employment hubs. She crafts economic development, real estate, and public policy strategies to foster innovation in cities.

Sulin works with clients across the country to balance private sector and community interests while advancing ambitious economic and community development initiatives. Her work includes supporting commercial corridors and small businesses in a shifting retail landscape, creating vibrant and inclusive local and regional employment hubs, planning for the future of urban industrial areas, and grounding local economic development in food systems and policy.

Sulin recently led an interdisciplinary team to create a Master Plan for Pike Place Market – the iconic public market in Seattle. The resulting Master Plan is grounded in the curation of authentic food and retail offerings that will reattract a local audience, with strategies for greater financial sustainability, increased presence of farmers, support for inclusive local entrepreneurship, and physical investments. Her other work at the intersection of food and economic development includes a study of strategies for creating affordable grocery stores in low-income and gentrifying neighborhoods on behalf of a New York City-based food advocacy not-for-profit; and a redevelopment plan for a major publicly owned produce wholesale market in a major metropolitan area.

Sulin is HR&A’s leader in industrial policy and development. On behalf of the City of New York, Sulin facilitated an Industrial Working Group – comprised of businesses, advocates, and policy experts – to redefine the sectors’ needs and opportunities.  Sulin has also crafted strategies for growing 21^st century industry for the Newmarket neighborhood in Boston and for Attleboro, MA.

Sulin helps small businesses and retail corridors adapt in the face of economic change. On behalf of Welcome to Chinatown, a not-for-profit organization focused on supporting entrepreneurs in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Sulin directed the Chinatown Impact Study, which assessed neighborhood small business’ challenges and identified interventions to support recovery. She is now working with Welcome to Chinatown design a business incubator and develop succession planning strategies. Further, Sulin is currently working with the Atlanta BeltLine Initiative on developing commercial affordability strategies to support Black and brown businesses around the transformative multi-use BeltLine trail.

Sulin helps clients plan for the changing face of downtowns. For the National Landing Business Improvement District, Sulin led creation of a Market Impact Study with strategies for accelerating growth of an innovation district in downtown Arlington, Virginia anchored by AmazonHQ2, Virginia Tech, and $4B in infrastructure investments. Sulin led development of an economic benefits case for the Fifth Avenue Association’s plan to transform Fifth Avenue into a world-class, pedestrian-focused corridor – announced by the Adams Administration in 2022 – to anchor the revitalization of Midtown Manhattan.

Sulin re-joined HR&A in 2020 after serving as Senior Economic Development Planner in the New York City Department of City Planning (DCP), where she led the North Brooklyn Industry & Innovation Plan, the most comprehensive study of an industrial area conducted by DCP in decades, and a comprehensive study of the future of retail and storefront vacancy trends.

Sulin holds a Master in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago.

Alex supports the design and implementation of policies to promote inclusive economic development, decarbonization, and climate change adaptation in cities.

As a principal based in the New York office, Alex specializes in the intersection between bold climate action and equitable approaches to economic development. Hand in hand with philanthropy and state and local government, he provides technical assistance to help underserved communities—including rural communities and underserved urban areas—tap into federal funding to deploy infrastructure and investments that drive economic development. For government and private-sector institutions, he guides the planning of projects that integrate decarbonization with inclusive economic development in order to ensure investments in renewable energy and the green economy generate benefits for all. To inform financial decision-making and infrastructure funding strategy, he evaluates and narrates the economic and social impacts of climate risks and climate adaptation investments for residents, businesses, property owners, and local governments. And he advises major government and community anchor institutions on ways to support the growth and longevity of small and disadvantaged businesses via equitable procurement, affordable capital access, technical assistance and training, and other interventions.

Prior to joining HR&A, Alex managed contracts on behalf of New York State and local government clients in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, supporting New York Rising recovery and resilience programs targeting housing, infrastructure, small business, and post-disaster economic development.

Alex holds a Masters in Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a Sustainability Certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Business. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Yale University.

Giacomo advises governments, businesses, and non-profits on creating thriving places, cities, and economies through technology and innovation.

As part of his work in HR&A’s Urban Technology and Innovation practice, Giacomo has tested, iterated, and deployed a financial technology solution to help gig workers access unemployment benefits, including supporting the client’s Congressional testimony on this topic; assessed an urban tech accelerator’s influence on the global urban tech ecosystem and its economic, social, and environmental impacts to inform how the program should continue to evolve; supported a regional, cross-sector partnership in winning a $63 million federal grant for a regional robotics and artificial intelligence cluster in Western Pennsylvania;  and developed a strategy to partner with real estate owners and developers for a leading mobility technology company.

Giacomo has also advised clients through real estate market and development analyses, developing and deploying workforce programs and technologies, and proposing financially sustainable models for both retail and commercial public banks. His clients span universities, foundations, government entities, and nonprofits throughout the United States and the world.

Before joining HR&A, Giacomo crafted and implemented technology strategies at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Technology Services and Security. There, he led a project to reimagine the Commonwealth’s delivery of unemployment benefits and workforce services. At EOTSS, he also worked closely with Massachusetts’s Chief Digital Officer to scale the Digital Service team and to launch the new state website Mass.gov. Previously, Giacomo served as an Urban Fellow in the New York City government and was a member of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Emerging Technology Policy Network.

Giacomo has a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University and a Master of Public Administration – Master in Public Policy dual degree with distinction from the London School of Economics (U.K.) and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore). His work has been published in academic journals, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Foreign Policy, and an Italian newspaper. He also regularly writes about policy, technology, and international affairs on his Medium blog, The Envoy.

Amelia’s work focuses on organizational and governance design, sociopolitical analyses of place, and building technological infrastructure that combats disenfranchisement.

Based in HR&A’s Los Angeles office, Amelia has helped produce city and county-wide economic development strategies, value-capture models for open spaces, and evaluations of the real estate industry’s adoption of health and social equity practices.

Prior to joining HR&A, Amelia managed editorial and podcasting content for Archinect, an online architecture and urbanism publication. She has reported as a freelancer for Curbed.com, Places Journal, Hyperallergic, and the Atlantic’s CityLab, covering topics from street vending policy to art in transit stations. She served as guest editor for the Van Alen Institute’s editorial series on cities and mental health, and an anthology of papers for the Conscious Cities conference. In partnership with an epidemiological study on brain health at Massachusetts General Hospital, her graduate thesis research also focused on the relationship between the built environment and public health. She has also supported research on municipal managed retreat policy while an associate at the Consensus Building Institute, a non-profit dispute resolution and mediation firm.

Amelia has a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric with Honors from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Masters of City Planning from MIT.

Jenna is an Analyst who works with the Los Angeles Office to support real estate, municipal planning, and economic development projects.

Prior to joining HR&A, Jenna worked for a consortium of USC’s Spatial Sciences Institute, Studio One Eleven, and Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative to identify and analyze potential sites in LA County for affordable housing and open space joint development for the Los Angeles Regional Open Space and Housing Collaborative. She defined criteria for site identification, assembled and created relevant datasets to analyze a variety of relevant factors, and published customizable web applications to share findings. She has also worked for Retail Design Collaborative/Studio One Eleven and for the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

Jenna received a Bachelor of Science in GeoDesign with a minor in Real Estate Finance from the University of Southern California.

Ashley draws on her multidisciplinary and international background to provide research and analytical work across a wide variety of urban projects at HR&A.

Prior to joining HR&A, Ashley developed growth strategies at a food-tech startup in New York City. She was previously an intern at Jones Lang LaSalle Investment Management in Hong Kong and a summer fellow at The Municipal Art Society of New York, where she conducted a wayfinding study on South Street Seaport.

Ashley graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in urban studies. Her senior honors thesis explored the intersection of preservation, development and resiliency at South Street Seaport. During her time at Brown, Ashley also traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, Cape Town, South Africa, and Ahmedabad, India with the International Honors Program studying the socio-economic landscapes of the built environment.