Xavier de Souza Briggs

is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Fellow inUrban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(2002-2004) and Associate Professor of Public Policy at HarvardUniversity’s Kennedy School of Government. He has conducted nationallyawarded research on young people, housing desegregation, and economicopportunity. In the world of practice, he has been a community planner inthe South Bronx; a senior adviser on economic development, affordablehousing, and regional change to the White House and Congress while inthe federal government; and a consultant to leading national and international organizations.

A sociologist by training, Briggs teaches urban policy and planning,community problem solving, negotiation, and strategy. His currentresearch focuses on making diversity work incities, issues of housing andurban inequality, and democratic problem solving at the local level. He isa member of the Aspen Institute’s roundtable on community change and an adviser to the World Bank’sCommunity Empowerment and Social Inclusion Project and other policy groups. Briggs holds an engineeringdegree from Stanford, an M.P.A. from Harvard, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and has heldfellowships of the National Science Foundation and American Sociological Association.