Meet the Experts

Office of Housing and Community Investment 

Ted Wartell, Associate Director

Expertise: affordable housing, federal housing programs, financial regulation, mortgage finance. Four years managing the Office of Housing and Community Investment since its creation. Prior to FHFA, served as the Director of Regulator​y Affairs at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.  He also served as chief of staff for Community Lending at Fannie Mae. Served as Directo​r of the Office of Policy at the U.S. Small Business Administration and as a budget analyst for affordable housing programs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. M.P.P., University of Chicago and B.A., Northwestern University.​

Rona Richardson, Administrative Office Manager

Expertise: office administration, new technology implementation, federal records management and other federal administrative protocols. Ten years at FHFA, having been transferred with the rest of HUD's Enterprise mission oversight staff, with which she had worked for eight years in the GSE offices.  While at HUD she was recognized for her work on special projects involving HUD's Community Builders program, databases, reorganizations and procurement within the Office of Personnel.  She carries out all administrative duties for OHCI and is OHCI's Records Management Liaison.

Enterprise Housing Goals Team

Padmasini (Padma) Raman, Team Lead, Supervisory Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing markets and finance, primary and secondary housing market analyses, econometric and economic analysis. Padma joined FHFA in 2015 as the team lead for the Enterprise Housing Goals team. Prior to that she was an economist in the Housing Finance Analysis Division of the Office of Policy Development and Research at HUD.  She has over 22 years of experience conducting research, analyzing and monitoring housing markets, including over ten years at Fannie Mae as an economist and in multiple product management roles. Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University.

Omena Ubogu, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Quantitative research, data analysis and visualization, and modeling. Joined FHFA in 2018. Twelve years in real estate research and forecasting at CoStar Group. M.A. in Applied Economics, University of Michigan.

Jeanie Shattuck Lemons, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Federal affordable housing and community development policy, research, communications, policy analysis. Joined FHFA in 2016. Previous experience working on federal, state and local housing policy  at Enterprise Community Partners. Prior to graduate school, experience working on the government relations team at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. MA in Public Policy, Duke University; B.A. in Government/Political Science, Franklin & Marshall College.

Sarah Minster, Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing and community development, policy analysis. Joined FHFA in August 2021. Prior to FHFA, Sarah graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. in Economics and Civic Studies. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, Sarah researched projects related to urban economics, was an Assistant Program Officer working in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives at the Allianz Foundation for North America, and interned in communications at the research-based nonprofit Candid.

Duty to Serve Team

Arun Barman, Senior Economist

Expertise: Housing finance and mortgage markets, economic modeling and trends, metropolitan and regional housing market analysis, high-LTV refinance programs, affordable housing programs, data visualization, policy analysis, and program management. Barman has worked at FHFA for over five years in various roles, in OPAR, OFAMS and now leading data analytics and monitoring of the Duty to Serve program. Barman joined FHFA in February 2014 from Deloitte and Touche where he provided risk analysis for Ginnie Mae.  He also worked as a Research Economist at the National Association of Realtors, and Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Brookings Institution. Master's degree, London School of Economics. M.A., University of Toledo. B.A., U.C.L.A.

Marcea Barringer, Supervisory Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable rental housing finance, low-moderate income homeownership finance and counseling, housing and community development policy analysis.  Barringer joined FHFA in 2017, and currently leads the Duty to Serve Program team.  Previously, she served as team lead for the Federal Home Loan Bank Affordable policy team at FHFA. Before coming to FHFA, Barringer worked for NeighborWorks America for nine years. She has over twenty years of experience in the affordable housing field, including as a technical assistance provider, CDFI lender, and Low Income Housing Tax Credit syndicator.  M.P.A. and certificate in Urban and Regional Planning, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University; B.A. in Architectural Studies, Brown University. 

Lauren Boyd, Policy Analyst

Expertise:  Affordable housing programs, policy analysis.  Boyd joined FHFA in August 2020.  Previously, she was a Jr. Analyst at The Cloudburst Group where she held the coordinator role for projects supporting Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs.  Master's degree in Public Policy focusing on Urban Policy, George Washington University; B.S. in Political Science and Mass Communication, Towson University.  

Rebecca Cohen, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing programs, state and local housing and land use policy, policy analysis, and program evaluation. Cohen joined FHFA in 2019. Previously, she was an Associate at Abt Associates, where she worked on projects related to state and local affordable housing policy, homelessness, disaster response and recovery, and financial literacy and asset-building.  Before Abt, Cohen was at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she supported BPC's Housing Commission in developing recommendations for reform of the U.S. housing finance system; and the Center for Housing Policy. Master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning, Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota; B.A. in Cultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis.  ​

Toi N. Roberts, Program Analyst

Expertise: Executive office management and administration, project management, project tracking and organization, records and information management, budget planning and execution, contracting representative, computer software technology and implementation.  Roberts joined FHFA's predecessor agency, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) in 2000 and has provided executive assistance to the Director's office under four Directors. Throughout her tenure, she has assisted the Capital program office in the writing of the Risk-Based Capital rule, developed and maintained the agency executive review tracking system and process, and served as the COR on the agency's HARP Campaign project.​

Joshua Sagartz, Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing programs, policy analysis. Sagartz joined FHFA in March 2022. Previously, he was a Policy Analyst at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD) Office of Policy and Strategy where he monitored and reported on performance indicators of HPD’s affordable housing production. Further, he analyzed the performance of NYC’s housing lottery system. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a Master of Public Policy and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Federal Home Loan Banks Affordable Programs Branch

Tiffani Moore, Supervisory Policy Analyst 

Expertise: affordable housing finance and homelessness program regulatory and policy development, analysis, and implementation; program monitoring and compliance. Joined FHFA in February 2017. Previously, she was employed with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) in the Office of Community Planning & Development where she supported the Office of Affordable Housing Programs in the administration of the HOME Program and the Housing Trust Fund, the Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs as the Team Lead of the Continuum of Care Program Regulation and Policy Team, and a field office as a Community Planning and Development Representative. She also provided staff support to Harris County (TX) in the administration of its HUD affordable housing and community development allocation. 
M.B.A., University of Virginia; Master of Urban Planning with a concentration in community and economic development, University of Michigan; and B.A. in English, magna cum laude, Dillard University.​

Shannon Fountain, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: affordable single-family and multifamily housing development and finance, owner-occupied housing rehabilitation, community economic development in low-income communities, primary and secondary market lending, housing finance program development, delivery and administration. Fountain joined FHFA in May 2022; previously, she worked a total of twelve years at the Federal Home Loan Banks of Indianapolis and Atlanta serving in leadership roles supporting the Affordable Housing Program and the Community Investment Program. She has over twenty years of experience in the housing finance industry serving in various roles focused on housing finance at Fannie Mae, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, and Banc One Mortgage Corporation. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University- Bloomington and is a National Development Council Certified Housing Development Finance Professional. 

Eric Howard, Principal Policy Analyst

Expertise: Regulatory and policy development, program development and implementation, financial institution examination, equal employment opportunity, affirmative employment, special emphasis programs, diversity outreach initiatives, program monitoring and compliance, alternative dispute resolution. Twelve years at FHFA including 4 years with OHCI developing the proposed and final rules for the AHP. Previously at FHFA, Eric served as Deputy Director Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, and EEO and Diversity Director.  Eric spent 23 years at the Farm Credit Administration as a Senior Policy Analyst, EEO Director, Ombudsman, and Commissioned Examiner. M.S., Human Resources Management and Services, University of Maryland; B.A. in Finance, Oklahoma State University.​

​Mike Price, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: manufactured housing, Community Support Program, Affordable Housing Program, Duty to Serve, Enterprise and Federal Home Loan Bank housing goals, and fair lending. Started with FHFA in February 2009; previously served at the Department of Housing and Urban Development overseeing the Enterprises. Projects have included developing regulations, monitoring compliance, developing and presenting executive briefing materials, analyzing legislation, teaching mortgage finance and securitization to incoming agency staff, and speaking on behalf of the agency at conferences and interagency events. Law degree and bachelor's degree, University of Georgia. Member of the District of Columbia Bar and the State Bar of Georgia.​

Danielle Safran, Senior Economist

Expertise: Data analysis and data visualization, market research, and technical writing. Data expertise in Federal Home Loan Bank housing programs. Additional Federal Home Loan Bank experience includes market risk board reporting, corporate and board governance, executive compensation, and speechwriting. Before FHFA, Danielle worked in labor market economics and statistics. She holds an M.B.A. from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, and a B.A. in Economics, cum laude, from Harvard University.​

National Mortgage Database Program​

Robert B. Avery, Project Director

Avery is the overall director of the National Mortgage Database Project. He joined FHFA in that capacity after retiring as a Senior Economist from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the fall of 2012. Previously he had held positions as a Professor at Cornell University and as an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His work at the Federal Reserve focused on supervisory issues related to community affairs and bank supervision. He was a coauthor of a number of studies in these areas including the Federal Reserve’s Congressional Report on Disparate impact in Credit Scoring, and Federal Reserve Bulletin articles on the 2004 through 2011 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and revisions to the Community Reinvestment Act in 2005. He was also one of the founders of the tri-annual Survey of Consumer Finances and designed the loan sampling systems used for the Federal Reserve’s examinations of small bank safety and soundness and for large syndicated loans. He has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ian Keith, Senior Program Analyst

Keith is responsible for the data management and quality control of the National Mortgage Database. He specializes in SAS® software. He is an expert in Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, Census tract demographic data, and FHFA’s Enterprise affordable housing goals. Prior to joining FHFA, he spent 17 years at the Department of Housing and Urban Development primarily with the Office of Policy Development and Research in the Financial Institutions Regulation Division before transferring to FHFA in 2009. He has a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.S. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Ismail Mohamed, Senior Financial Analyst

Mohamed is responsible for overseeing the matching of administrative and other third-party data into the National Mortgage Database. He joined the National Mortgage Database team from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where he had worked as a contractor for 13 years. He has over 20 years of solid technical expertise in statistical software, applications development, data analysis, and applied economic research. During his tenure with the Office of Policy Development and Research, Mohamed supported HUD’s mission regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until that responsibility was transferred to FHFA. Afterward, he continued as lead architect and developer in vital HUD projects including the analyses of Federal Housing Administration, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Home Affordable Modification Program, Mortgage Loan Performance, and McDash data, and the development of HUD’s Housing Scorecard. He also led HUD’s implementation of the agency-wide SAS® Enterprise Business Intelligence System that supported over 300 HUD SAS users. Mohamed was author and coauthor in papers covering the practical implementation of time series, applications of neural networks, program planning and evaluation, and international development. He received a M.S. from the University of Maryland, and a M.S. and a Ph.D. from Iowa State University.

​​Saty Patrabansh, Associate Director, Office of Data and Statistics

Patrabansh leads the Office of Data and Statistics in the Division of Research and Statistics.  His office is responsible for the National Mortgage Database (NMDB), Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD), and several other mortgage and housing data at FHFA.  Previously, he was the Manager of the NMDB program at FHFA and a Senior Economist in the Office of Policy Analysis and Research (OPAR).  Prior to joining FHFA, he was a Data Center Co-Director and Project Director at Abt Associates, a government research and consulting firm.  He specializes in survey methodology, single-family mortgages, credit bureau data, and property data with prior research and analysis experience in first-time homebuyers, refinancing programs such as HARP, rural mortgage borrowers, mortgage delinquency, foreclosure prevention, homeownership retention, REO disposition, and cadastral data. He holds an M.P.P. specializing in econometrics, finance, and evaluation from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Grinnell College.

Jay Schultz, Senior Economist

Schultz is responsible for developing and implementing critical components of the National Mortgage Database, including imputations. He joined FHFA in 2009 when the housing goal responsibility was transferred from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he had worked in the Office of Policy Development and Research for 12 years and the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity for 2 years. His work at HUD focused on developing regulations and evaluating the performance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac toward the statutorily required housing goals. Prior to working for the Federal Government, he held the position of Chief Economist for the Missouri Department of Insurance where he headed the Statistics Section which is responsible for collecting and analyzing data on underwriting and losses paid for all lines of insurance. His research focuses on affordable housing and mortgage market issues as well as property insurance as it relates to affordable housing and community development. He has a B.S. in Economics from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in Economics/Finance from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Rebecca Sullivan, Economist

Sullivan supports data management and analysis of the National Mortgage Database, focusing primarily on the National Survey of Mortgage Originations. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in economics, focusing on public policy and statistical modeling. She came to the NMDB team from her role as a research assistant at the University of Maryland. In that role, she managed databases consisting of economic, demographic, and voting data.

Office of Capital Policy

David Roderer, Senior Financial Analyst

Roderer is responsible for the Annual Guarantee Fee Report and the Monthly Interest Rate Survey.  Over the last four years he has worked extensively on finding the appropriate level of guarantee fees.  He has been with the FHFA and FHFB for 11 years in the Office of Policy Analysis & Research and the Division of Bank Regulation.  Before that he worked for the OCC for ten years, in Economics and Compliance.  He has a B.A. in Mathematics from Macalester College.

Ron Sugarman, Principal Legislative Analyst

Sugarman has more than 30 years of experience in federal housing finance programs. His recent work has focused on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee fee policy analysis, Dodd-Frank implementation (credit risk retention and swap margin rules), writing a working paper on the National Survey of Mortgage Originations, writing part of the Enterprise capital rule, and international coordination. Prior to joining OFHEO (one of FHFA's predecessor agencies), he worked at HUD on the FHA and Ginnie Mae programs. ​He earned his B.A. in Quantitative Studies at Johns Hopkins University.​

Division of Research and Statistics

Ross Batzer, Ph.D., Economist

Batzer is specialized in macroeconomic modeling. His state-of-the-art computational models have shown how policy tools can be properly tuned across business cycles as well as throughout an individual's lifecycle for more efficient systems. He is applying those skills now to study how the housing market drives outcomes in asset markets and the macroeconomy. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Minnesota and previously worked as a Research Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Joshua Bosshardt, Ph.D., Economist

Bosshardt specializes in research on financial intermediaries, including topics related to mortgage lending, liquidity, and lender business models. His recent work has focused on forbearances, usage of appraisal waivers, and underwriting standards, each with a focus on a comparison between banks and nonbanks. He has presented his work at conferences organized by the Financial Intermediation Research Society, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Financial Management Association. He is a member of the Financial Management Association and the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association. Prior to his graduate studies, he was a research assistant at the International Monetary Fund. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Chicago.

Becka Brolinson, Economist

Brolinson specializes in environmental economics, focusing on energy economics and natural disaster risk in mortgage finance. Her research has focused on household response to residential energy prices, green labeling of commercial office space, and natural disaster risk in mortgage finance. She has presented work at conferences hosted by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the Southern Economics Association, the US Association for Energy Economics, Camp Resources at NC State, the Young Economists Symposium at Columbia University, and the Heartland Conference on Environmental and Resource Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At FHFA, Brolinson is a co-lead of FHFA’s Data and Research Working group related to climate risk, and she is a member of DRS’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Economics with minors in Mathematics and Spanish from the University of Vermont.

Charles Capone, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist

Capone joined FHFA in 2020 after a 35-year career spanning academia, government, and banking. His specialty is mortgage credit risk analysis, and he has built and led teams building statistical models of credit risk, portfolio valuation, and capital requirements. His written work appears in professional/academic journals, reports to Congress, and internal working papers and documents. Capone developed the expanded loan limit regime for FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac in early 2008 that assured housing credit availability in the unfolding financial crisis, oversaw capital valuation for the Federal Housing Administration through the financial crisis, and managed (Basel II/III) Advanced Approaches models of capital determination for single-family mortgages at JPMorgan Chase in the post-crisis period. At FHFA, Capone leads a team of professional staff looking at all facets of new product proposals for feasibility and viability. He holds both M.A. (Political Economy) and Ph.D. (Econometrics, Public Finance) degrees in Economics from the University of Virginia, and a B.S. in Business Administration (Economics, Finance) from LaSalle University.

Chi-Cheol Chung, Senior Financial Analyst

Chung is responsible for leading research on the housing affordability. Recently he published a research paper on a new home affordability estimate. At FHFA, he serves as an expert in data and modeling, credit and market risk assessment, risk-based capital framework and policy analysis including FHFA’s Neighborhood Stabilization Initiatives. Prior to FHFA, he worked at various organizations including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Barclays, focusing on fixed income capital markets and market risk management. He received a business degree from the University of Virginia with concentration of finance, economics and marketing.

Justin Contat, Ph.D., Senior Economist

Contat conducts research on housing and mortgage markets, with a focus in search theory and general buyer/borrower behavior. Often he adapts theoretical frameworks to study empirical problems in new ways. His current interests include the strategic incentives of seller disclosures in real estate listings, housing market liquidity, and the dual role of housing as consumption and investment. He also assists in data production for the FHFA House Price Index (HPI) and has been a member of the climate change and ESG working group. He is a member of the American Economic Association, the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, and the American Real Estate Society. He received his Ph.D.​ in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where his focus was on auction theory. Prior to joining FHFA, he taught at Longwood University.

Lawrence Costa, Ph.D. Economist

Costa's research focus has centered around education and its relationship to lifecycle earnings and unemployment, which he has studied using computational models of the working lifetime. He is now turning his modeling expertise to studying the housing market. Costa received a Ph.D. in economics from Georgetown; his undergraduate degree is from NYU.

Will Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist

Doerner leads a team of experts doing research in housing, mortgage markets, and real estate. He provides thoughtful data-driven leadership on national policy issues. His recent research products have won professional awards, been published in academic and industry journals, and have formed the basis for stories in leading news sources. He brings a combination of practical and academic experiences that include being appointed as a Commissioner for the Prince George's County Planning Board, serving on the Hyattsville Planning Committee, and working in property appraisal and valuation for both state and county agencies in Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Florida State University), M.S. in Economics (Florida State University), and a B.S. in Mathematics-Economics and Urban Studies (Furman University).

Robert Dunsky, Ph.D., Principal Economist

Dunsky has over two decades of experience in econometric modeling just at FHFA and its predecessor agency. He designed and directed the effort to build a mortgage analytics platform used to measure mortgage credit and prepayment risks. The platform is used for the annual Dodd-Frank Stress Tests to measure credit losses, Private Mortgage Insurance Eligibility Requirements 1.0 to calibrate required asset levels, to evaluate GSE Credit Risk Transfers, to measure CECL impacts and to explore forward looking mortgage finance policy options. The platform became patent pending in July 2015, and received a patent in May 2019 as U.S. Patent No. 10,282,781. Dunsky has also assisted other U.S. federal agencies and international organizations with mortgage modeling, valuation, and risk management. Previously Dunsky worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the strategy practice assisting clients with the design and development of economic models. Dunsky earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and is an avid sailor.

Ken Lam, Senior Economist

Expertise: Mortgage market modelling and forecasting, Default/prepayment models, loan modifications, underwriting standards, and program evaluation. Started at FHFA in 2011 in OPAR before moving to OHCI.   Prior to FHFA, Ken spent thirteen years at the consulting firm Abt Associates, where he conducted research on Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) and FHA's American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI).  M.P.P. in public policy and econometrics, University of Minnesota.

Robert Renner, Senior Geographer

Renner is a geographer by training and recognized as a leader in the federal geospatial community. Joining FHFA in 2022 as the agency’s sole geographer, Renner manages the agency’s geospatial data while contributing his expertise in spatial analysis to the production of housing-related data, statistics and research. Before joining FHFA, he spent several years as a senior manager in Deloitte’s Location Intelligence practice, delivering consulting and advisory services to various private and public sector clients. Prior to his time with Deloitte, Renner enjoyed a 16-year career in HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research where he led the development of an agency-wide Geographic Information System (GIS) and numerous applications to support housing and community development programs. In addition to his work in the geospatial technology space, Renner has also published research in several academic journals. He holds an M.S. in Geography from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Geography from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.

Jessica Shui, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist

​Shui leads a team conducting research on climate-related financial risks as well as coordinating FHFA’s Climate Change and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Working Group supporting the Climate Change and ESG Steering Committee. Prior to climate-related research, she studied real estate brokerage services, mortgage appraisals and appraisal waivers, automated valuation models, and land price valuation. She has published in the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, and Journal of Real Estate Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, where her focus was on behavioral and real estate economics.

Matthew Suandi, Economist

Suandi applies a unique toolkit as an economic historian to address microeconomic issues. His research has covered issues like how career shocks affect labor market and individual outcomes, the impact of infrastructure expansion on political participation, and how land transfers affect communities in developing countries. Currently, he is studying the consequences of natural hazard risk in housing finance. He has presented research at the NBER summer institute, national conferences, and university seminars. He received his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley and his BS in Economics and Mathematics at Michigan State.

Anju Vajja, Senior Associate Director

Anju is the Associate Director of the Office of Policy Analysis and Research. She leads a team of economists and analysts that focus on research affecting housing finance and financial markets, analysis supporting pricing and servicing decisions, and analysis evaluating policy implications of proposed legislations and programs.  Her office also prepares data series and publications, including the FHFA House Price Index.  Prior to this, she served over 10 years in Federal Home Loan Bank supervision as an expert in credit risk modeling.  She also worked for about 10 years at the World Bank on community development program evaluations and research.  She holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Georgetown University), M.A. in Economics (Delhi School of Economics, India), and Financial Risk Manager and Professional Risk Manager certifications.

Scott Weiner, Economist

Weiner is an applied microeconomist whose research work has taken him everywhere from India, to Argentina, and now to FHFA. The thread that binds together his wide-ranging interests is a passion for uncovering and understanding the real-world effects of policy choices, particularly on vulnerable or underserved populations. His areas of expertise include statistical methods of causal inference, policy evaluation, and working with large, complex data. At FHFA, he applies this skillset to work on analysis of policy proposals related to housing and housing finance markets, with a primary focus on expanding opportunities for affordable and sustainable homeownership. He also contributes to projects aimed at improving data quality and access for other agency researchers and analysts. Prior to joining FHFA, he received a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University, where he specialized in the fields of development, labor, and public economics. He received his bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Relations from Brown University.

November Wilson, Economist

Wilson utilizes cutting-edge empirical techniques to explore topics at the intersection of racial inequalities and policy. By applying labor economic techniques, they address questions of whether certain groups of people experience disparate treatments when public policies are changed. At FHFA, these skills translate to whether natural hazard risks have differential impacts on vulnerable populations in housing finance markets. They completed their M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Microeconomics and Econometrics at the University of Oregon, during which time they studied the impacts of drug law policy changes on the prevalence of racial disparities in law enforcement. They received their B.A. in Economics at the University of South Florida.

Office of Multifamily Analytics and Policy

Debra Fuller, ABD, Principal Financial Engineer/Economist

Fuller is a responsible for managing research projects from data collection, validation and loading into QRM, 3rd party vendor behavioral model and term structure and other assumptions set-up and validation, resolution of IT/vendor issues, including debugging and RAM and disk space issues, and validation and analysis of vendor and proprietary FHFA model results. Debra also is responsible for documentation of aforementioned processes and writing of white papers and presentations. She has expertise in SAS, default/prepayment modeling, market risk, credit risk, and project management. Published work includes “Economic Impact Analysis of the Port of Tampa," USDA white papers, FHFA Risk-based Capital Rule and an FHFA Countercyclical working paper. She has earned a B.A. International Relations/Spanish (University of South Florida), M.S. Economics (University of Florida), and was a Ph.D. Candidate ABD (University of Miami). Several FHFA awards, including the Director's Award for work on principal forgiveness.

Michael Groarke, Senior Policy Analyst, M.B.A.

Michael Groarke has extensive experience in single family and multifamily housing markets, as well as in affordable housing. He has played an important role in teams focusing on housing research and policy development, and in the development of affordable housing goals for the Enterprises.  He previously worked at HUD, with the CIA, and with several other government agencies and firms. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Columbia University and his M.B.A. from the business school at the College of William & Mary.

​Date last updated:  5/18​​/2023​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​