Announcing the 2021 John R. Meyer Dissertation Fellows
CAMBRIDGE, MA - Three Harvard doctoral students have been named 2021 John R. Meyer Dissertation Fellows by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies:
Jacob Anbinder, a PhD candidate in History, is studying the politics of American cities and suburbs in the twentieth century. The Meyer Fellowship will support his dissertation, tentatively titled “Cities of Amber: Antigrowth Politics and the Making of Modern Liberalism, 1950–2008,” which examines the complex political movement that emerged against urban growth in Northeastern and West Coast metropolitan areas in the late twentieth century. Anbinder, who was awarded the Raymond J. Cunningham Prize by the American Historical Association, received a BA in history from Yale University.
Thomas Shay Hill, a PhD candidate in Urban Planning, is studying the role of data and statistics in the urban development process, from the early twentieth century to the present. The Meyer Fellowship will support research and writing of his dissertation’s chapter on “Housing Markets in the Age of Big Data,” which will examine how large datasets and digital platforms have altered patterns of real estate finance and development and offer new opportunities for urban planning and policymaking. Hill, who was awarded a Richard Rogers Fellowship and was a doctoral fellow with the Harvard Mellon Urbanism Initiative, received an MS in Computational Science and Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a BA in Urban Studies from Columbia University.
Erica Moszkowski, a PhD candidate in Business Economics, draws on econometric techniques from the industrial organization literature to study urban economics and topics related to housing. The Meyer Fellowship will support her dissertation research, which uses proprietary and public data to examine how urban retailers choose where to locate, how their presence (or absence) makes neighborhoods more desirable (or undesirable) for different types of residents, and how lenders’ and landlords’ incentives and constraints shape these processes. Moszkowski, who was awarded a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation, received an MA in Business Economics from the Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics and Computer Science from Williams College.
Meyer Fellows receive a stipend from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and access to the Center’s resources and interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners. Fellows are expected to produce a working paper and to present their work in a Housing Research Seminar at the Center. The fellowship honors the memory of the late John R. Meyer, who chaired the Center's Faculty Committee from 1997 to 2003 and served as its Interim Director from 1996 to 1998. One of the leading urban economists of his generation, Meyer was the James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Economic Growth at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also served as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, as a professor at Harvard Business School, and as a professor of economics at both Harvard and Yale.
Media Contact: Kerry Donahue, (617) 495-7640, [email protected]