The Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy is a dynamic team of researchers collaborating on key research initiatives with local communities to effect meaningful policy change.
Faculty Leadership
Associate Director for Civic Research
Dr. Alicia Sasser Modestino
Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics at Northeastern University
Working in partnership with city departments, state agencies, and community-based organizations Dr. Modestino specializes in co-creating rigorous data and analysis to find solutions to today’s most urgent public problems. She is currently an Affiliated Researcher of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute Labor Economics. Previously, she was a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston where she conducted research on regional economic and policy issues for over a decade. Dr. Modestino’s current research focuses primarily on labor and health economics including areas such as youth employment and training, future of work and the workforce, housing affordability, and healthcare access. In recognition of her leadership, she received the inaugural Global Network Accelerator Award from Northeastern University in 2023 and was named JPAL’s Evidence Champion in 2024 for her “extraordinary contributions to the field of evidence-based policymaking.”
Associate Director for Civic Research
Dr. Kim Lucas
Professor of the Practice in Public Policy and Economic Justice
School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.
Kim is an academic-practitioner who is committed to community-driven civic research, innovation in city-university collaborations, and leveraging our collective expertise for the social good. Kim previously served as Interim Executive Director at Metrolab Network and Director of Civic Research for the City of Boston. Kim’s research focuses on early childhood policy and the child care market, and their practical experience includes over a decade of innovation in community-engaged research.
Campus Network Advisors
Ted Landsmark
Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs
Mark Henderson
Oakland Research Director
Carrie Maultsby-Lute
Head of Partnerships-Oakland Campus
Aileen Huang-Saad
Associate Professor, Bioengineering; Director of Life Science and Engineering Programs, Roux Institute
Alicia Jalbert
Manager of Community Partnerships
