Karen Black is the CEO of May 8 Consulting and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania in the Urban Studies Department. Black is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Drexel University Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. In addition, Black is the co-founder of the Healthy Rowhouse Project, an initiative to improve access to private capital for home improvement loans that has leveraged $100 million in public and private capital. Black is the author of award-winning publications discussing strategies to revitalize communities and attract private investment. Black taught a course on public policy responses to gentrification at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2015. Prior to beginning her consulting practice, Black was the founding director of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, a region-wide policy center founded to research issues impacting the economy, environment and equity within the Philadelphia metropolitan region. Prior to that, Black spent 12 years as a practicing civil rights attorney. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College and a Doctorate of Law from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Adriana Abizadeh is the executive director of Philadelphia-based Kensington Corridor Trust (KCT). The mission, duty, and purpose of the KCT is to utilize collective ownership to direct investments on the corridor that preserve culture and affordability while building neighborhood power and wealth in Kensington. Adriana is also a policy fellow at Princeton University and Rutgers University.

With deep interests in public policy, Adriana has taken every opportunity to utilize her privileged position as a nonprofit leader to speak out for what she believes in and to lift the voices of impacted community members. Immersed in policy initiatives, she has facilitated community collaboration to address the intersectionality between immigration status, housing, poverty, and race.

Adriana has a BA in Political Science from Rutgers University with a minor in Security Intelligence and Counter Terrorism. She also has an MS in Public Policy from Drexel University. She has committed herself to serving on several boards that reflect some of her deepest passions: immigration, racial and health equity, and youth development.