Based in the DC office, Kwabene brings a background of social science and service to his work at the intersections of policy, place, and people.

Prior to joining HR&A, he spent a year in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a volunteer English teacher where he consulted the school administration and taught over 100 secondary school students. He has also held positions as a behavioral science research assistant and has interned at a law firm and a political nonprofit.

Kwabene graduated in 2022 with a BA in Sociology from the University of Chicago.

Joe provides research and analytical support for housing and economic development projects.

Prior to joining HR&A, Joe spent six years on the Research team at the Tennessee Housing Development Agency. There, he advised agency program divisions in policy decisions and programmatic evaluations. He also produced public-facing research reports on housing issues of broader public interest.

Joe holds a Master’s in Public Policy Analysis from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics, with a concentration in Urban Studies, from Macalester College.

Francis is an affordable housing practitioner and urban planner. She brings national and international real estate policy, finance, and development experience centered on creating equitable cities and communities.

Francis joins HR&A’s New York office as a Senior Analyst. Prior to joining HR&A, Francis was an Associate Developer at Pennrose, one of the largest affordable housing developers in the country, where she worked as a project manager on mixed-use, mixed-income deals across New England. Francis previously worked at MassHousing, the Massachusetts’ housing finance agency, where she created new supply- and demand-side policies and programs to address housing challenges and narrow the racial homeownership gap. Francis has also worked as a consultant with The World Bank, providing research, analysis, and recommendations for new housing finance policies and programs in Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Maldives.

Her prior work includes housing collaborations with resettled war refugees in Colombia, Jordan, and Uganda, disenfranchised indigenous communities in Guyana, incarcerated men in California, and rural-to-urban immigrants in Ecuador and Myanmar.

Francis holds a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Architecture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Amruta combines her experience in climate adaptation strategies, community organizing, cultural inclusivity, and land use policy to strengthen equity in planning.

Before HR&A, Amruta worked at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), where she focused on projects ranging from analyzing the coastal adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities to assisting multiple North Texas cities in developing urban design guidelines for missing-middle housing. Throughout her doctoral studies and before, Amruta has actively engaged with regional and local nonprofits and community-based organizations on community engagement projects, youth education on socio-ecological sustainability, and developed community stewardship frameworks for long-term, meaningful engagement of residents. She is also an adjunct faculty at UTA, teaching undergraduate and graduate students to conduct sustainability assessments of proposed projects to alleviate environmental and climate injustices. The course exposes students to multi-scale case studies on water resiliency, transportation, housing, environmental education, equitable food access, and others.

Amruta received her Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Texas at Arlington in May 2023, where she has won federal grants and regional awards for technical reports and high school student training projects. She holds a Bachelor’s from Mumbai University and a Master’s in Architecture from Penn State.

Greta Byrum is an urban planner specializing in broadband technologies and tech policy, equity, governance through program design and collaborative action research.

She serves as Principal for Broadband and Digital Equity Principal at HR&A Advisors, and is an Opportunity Fund Fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society.Previous to her work with HR&A, Greta led tech policy and community engagement projects for seven years at New America as Director of the Resilient Communities program and Director of Field Operations for the Open Technology Institute; and built Resilient Networks at New America, a $4.2 million post-Sandy partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, philanthropic organizations, and community-based organizations. She went on to found Community Tech NY, a nonprofit training community members as Digital Stewards to build storm-resilient community WiFi in NYC, Detroit, and rural Tennessee.

Greta also co-founded and built the Digital Equity Lab at the New School with Maya Wiley; and built and launched the $11m Just Tech Program for the Social Science Research Council, an initiative dedicated to imagining and creating more just technological futures. Greta is a Harvard Loeb and a Fulbright Fellow and has been called to testify for the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and Government Accountability Office.

Eddie Joe Antonio provides research, analysis, and visual communication to projects in the Digital Equity space.

Before joining HR&A, Eddie Joe worked as a landscape and urban designer for Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, where he helped conduct outreach, execute design drawings, and enrich streetscapes and green spaces in projects across New York City. He also apprenticed as a furniture designer in Mexico City, where he split time between a design studio and production environment.

Eddie Joe received a Masters of Science in Computational Design Practices from Columbia University and a Bachelors of Arts in Architecture from Yale University. His graduate thesis explored opportunities to enhance streetside usage of the LinkNYC system and prototyped an immersive, 3D-web storytelling format. As a research assistant at the Buell Center for American Architecture, he investigated and explored the first carbon offset project that connected pollution in coastal Connecticut to a carbon-capture site in western Guatemala. His work on this project will be exhibited as part of the 2023 Chicago Biennale.

Anika leverages her cross-sector experience to plan for more equitable, just, and accessible cities. She is passionate about centering joy, healing, and environmental justice in her work.

Prior to joining HR&A, Anika worked for the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard. She also interned with the United Nations’ Urban Mobility team in Nairobi, Kenya to develop sustainable urban mobility plans and accessibility guides for walkable streets. Anika is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, where she has worked for their Planning Department’s Office of Sustainability, coordinating the City’s Connecting Children to Nature program to advance equitable access to green space and forming partnerships between mental health and environmental programs. Anika was also formerly a summer fellow with HR&A.

Anika holds a Masters in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science & Policy and Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.

Kirthi brings her background in research, geospatial analysis, and data science to support our inclusive cities, housing affordability, and transit-oriented development practice areas.

Prior to joining HR&A, Kirthi served as a research assistant at Columbia University, where her work focused on developing a computer vision tool to empower planners to leverage street view imagery, commerce data, and geospatial analytics for the ethnographic study of enclaves in major US cities. During her time at the Center for Spatial Research, she focused on leveraging data to uncover valuable insights and inform evidence-based decision-making, and translated complex data sets into visualizations that effectively communicated information to diverse stakeholders. At SOM, she contributed to urban planning and design initiatives alongside the New York and Washington D.C. teams. Additionally, she gained valuable experience during internships at architectural firms in India and Japan while pursuing her undergraduate degree while also freelancing as a UI/UX designer.

Kirthi holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Anna University.

Cat works with communities to leverage technology to improve social equity and quality of life. Cat is based in the Los Angeles office, where she specializes in developing and implementing public policies and programs to address the digital divide.

Prior to joining HR&A, she was a Civic Technology Analyst at CTC Technology & Energy, where she advised state, city, and county clients on the development of equitable public broadband infrastructure and adoption strategies. Formerly, she was the Senior Program Manager at Next Century Cities, where she supported local leaders with tools and information to bring affordable and reliable broadband to their constituents. In this role, Cat also researched and advocated for equitable internet policy at all levels of government, including through direct congressional advocacy.

While in graduate school, Cat worked with the Commission on Gender Equity within the New York City Mayor’s Office, where she provided technical assistance to other city agencies to build a culture of gender equity. She also served as an outreach coordinator for A Better Tech, NYU’s public interest technology conference and career fair.

Cat holds a Master of Public Administration with a concentration in public policy analysis from the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from the University of Virginia.