About

• M.P.A., Harvard University
• MBA, Boston University
• B.A., Boston College

Neil McCullagh is Executive Director of the Carroll School of Management’s Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action and a Lecturer at Boston College. Neil leads the Center’s activities related to curriculum development, student engagement, and community outreach.

Neil has experience in both the private and nonprofit sectors including extensive domestic and international experience directing high-impact social change initiatives. Neil has led multiyear programs in community development, economic development, and housing. This dynamic experience informs his teaching at Boston College, where his courses focus on analyzing the factors critical to successful transformation of urban neighborhoods and giving students "learning by doing" experiences. 

Neil was the Executive Director of The American City Coalition (TACC), which provides place-based support to community based organizations focused on revitalization efforts in Boston and technical support to mixed-income housing developers. He served as Country Director for CHF International (now Global Communities) in Azerbaijan on a multiyear, community development program funded by the United States Agency for International Development. Prior to his work, he co-directed operations of a US-funded, private sector development program in Mongolia. He also oversaw all aspects of a reconstruction and refugee resettlement program in post-war Kosovo.

Neil holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College; an MBA from Boston University and an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was awarded a Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship for Innovations in Democracy and Governance. He was a Jesuit Volunteer in JVC Southwest. He currently serves on the board of Rebuilding Together Boston.

Courses Taught

• Real Estate and Urban Action (BSLW220601)
  
• Urban Action Lab (BSLW220801)
• Leading for Social Impact (BSLW600103)

• Ed.M., Harvard University
• B.A., Amherst College

Taylor Perkins is Associate Director of the Corcoran Center and teaches in the Carroll School of Management. Taylor leads the Center’s programming and experiential learning efforts, directing the Center's summer program and national affordable housing real estate case competiton.

Taylor brings over twelve years of experience to the Corcoran Center. Active in the field of Real Estate and Urban Action, he currently serves as an appointee to Somerville MA Mayor Katjana Ballantyne's Public Safety for All Task Force, and has conducted action-focused research for local governments and nonprofit organizations. As a professor he focuses on bridging the theoretical and practical realms within real estate and urban action through experiential learning, as well as robust engagement with professionals in the field and community members. 

Taylor is a graduate of Amherst College, where he double majored in Black Studies and Political Science, and Harvard University, where he earned an Ed.M. in Higher Education. At Amherst College he was a four-year varsity track and field student athlete.

Taylor lives in Somerville, MA with his wife Jessica Mueller, a surgeon, and their daughter. He is an avid boater, skier, and cyclist.

Courses Taught

Urban Action Lab (BSLW220801)

Edward Chazen’s work focuses on real estate development, finance, investment, and urban planning. He joins the Carroll School of Management with 28 years of professional work experience in the real estate industry and 14 years of experience teaching real estate at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He created and teaches three classes for NAIOP, a National Real Estate Developer Association.

Previously, Edward has been a full-time senior lecturer at Brandeis International Business School, an adjunct professor at Babson College, and a lecturer at Boston University. He authored twenty original case studies used in real estate courses.

His experience includes working for GE Capital’s real estate finance department, working for large real estate investment managers, and starting a company that advised real estate developers on structuring joint ventures with institutional investors. His work experience involved real estate acquisitions, development, and finance in multiple U.S. cities and all major property types.

He is a member of Counselors of Real Estate and has the CRE designation. He holds a BA from Emory University and an MBA from New York University.

Courses Taught

• Real Estate Fundamentals (BSLW112501)
• Real Estate Finance (MFIN220701)
• Real Estate Development (BSLW114501)
• Real Estate Field Projects (BSLW229901)
• Real Estate Transactions (BSLW2222)

Matthew Littell is one of the founding principals of Utile. Through his work in the firm’s architecture, planning, and early phase development projects, he has gained an expertise in building and zoning codes and regulatory processes specifically as they relate to urban design, housing and land use. His practice is local, national and international, and focuses on the intersection of public space, design of the built environment and land use policy.

Matthew served as Utile’s principal-in-charge for Imagine Boston 2030, the city’s first comprehensive plan in 50 years. He has directed many of the firm’s early phase planning and urban design projects, including the Downtown Boston Waterfront Municipal Harbor Plan, as well as the design guidelines and zoning for the Rose Kennedy Greenway District. He has led planning efforts in several Massachusetts Gateway cities, including Holyoke, Revere and Chelsea, MA, and has just completed a plan for Boston’s first Flood Resilience Guidelines and Zoning Overlay. He is currently the firm’s principal in charge for citywide rezoning efforts in Atlanta and Detroit, and leads Utile’s affordable housing efforts, which include the design of multiple developments in Boston and surrounding cities.

Matthew teaches a course on contemporary urban design issues at Boston College. He earned his M.Arch. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1997, where he received the Boston Society of Architects’ James Templeton Kelly award for the best final design project, as well as the Clifford Wong prize for outstanding design in housing.

Courses Taught

Urban Design for Complexity and Sustainability (BSLW220701)

Samantha Teixeira, PhD, joined the faculty of the BC School of Social Work in 2015. Her research focuses on how neighborhood environmental conditions affect youth and how youth can be engaged in creating solutions to environmental problems in their communities. She uses innovative, mixed-methods with a focus on participatory approaches including community mapping, photography, and spatial analysis. Teixeira’s diverse practice experience includes work in child welfare and community development. Teixeira and Rebekah Levine Coley (Professor, BC LSEHD) are co-leading a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities to study the effects of public housing redevelopment on the health and well being of more than 1,000 residents of the Mary Ellen McCormack housing development in South Boston.

In January 2023 David Price began work at Boston College Law School to help lead a startup program, the Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights (ILHPR).  This program seeks to preserve and expand property rights for disadvantaged communities across the United States by producing research, devising legal reform and policy solutions, engaging in community outreach, training law students, and drawing on other complementary strategies.

As Associate Director, David manages resource development, budget planning, communications, program planning and development and strategic planning.  David reports to Professor Thomas Mitchell, the ILHPR Director and the Robert F. Drinan SJ Chair and Professor of Law at BC Law School.  Professor Mitchell is the lead author of the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, adopted by 23 states and other jurisdictions 

David helps manage ILHPR programs, which seek to:

•  Train and develop a new generation of real estate attorneys and community practitioners by strengthening their expertise in estate planning, property-related matters and community development on behalf of disadvantaged communities; and learn from these communities in order to inform and improve the work of the ILHPR;
• Help develop legislative and policy solutions at the local, state and federal levels to advance the property rights of disadvantaged communities; and
• Spur community-informed research into critical property issues affecting disadvantaged communities, using conferences, seminars, workshops and other gatherings.

The public launch of the ILHPR was a spring 2023 conference on Land Loss, Reparations and Housing Policy which drew 250 attendees to the law school.  To date the ILHPR has secured the approval of a new law school degree concentration in Real Estate and Community Development Law, a key benchmark in the program’s efforts to guide students toward successful career [paths that also help them use their legal skills to benefit disadvantaged communities with property-related challenges. 

Beginning in fall 2023, David teaches an undergraduate class at BC, The State of Affordable Housing in the United States, through an affiliation with the Corcoran Center on Real Estate and Urban Action.  David taught Introduction to Law and Community Economic Development for two years at Southern New Hampshire University on an adjunct basis.  He has written on gentrification, affordable housing and the racial wealth gap on a Housing Matters! blog.

Prior to joining BC Law, David worked for 27 years helping build strong local development organizations in Boston, including most recently over thirteen years as the Executive Director of Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, where he departed in 2022.  Two transformative developments are Bartlett Station in Roxbury’s Nubian Square and The Loop at Mattapan Station.  At Nuestra he co-founded Homes for Equity, a research and advocacy coalition dedicated to the adoption of race-conscious homeownership policies to redress redlining and other forms of housing discrimination in Roxbury.

Prior to joining Nuestra, David served as Deputy Director and General Counsel for Madison Park Development Corporation and as Executive Director for Tent City Corporation.  David’s community organizing experience began as a volunteer with Mel King’s campaigns for Mayor of Boston in 1979 and 1983, during the time in which David lived in the Uphams Corner neighborhood in Boston.  David is a graduate of Harvard College (1977) and Boston College Law School (1991).  He clerked for Hon. Francis O’Connor at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and was a real estate attorney at Goulston & Storrs in Boston prior to joining the community development field. 

Courses Taught

The State of Affordable Housing in the States (BSLW2000)

Kate Bennett has worked in affordable housing development, policy and planning for more than 30 years, with a particular focus on public housing and neighborhood revitalization. She holds a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Kate recently retired as Administrator and CEO of the Boston Housing Authority, where she worked for over 25 years. She oversaw public housing and voucher programs that provide affordable housing for over 25,000 households in and around the City of Boston. In her tenure at BHA, she was instrumental in implementing several strategic initiatives, including more than $2 billion in redevelopment initiatives and capital upgrades; the creation of an asset management division to ensure long-term preservation of deeply affordable units; development of the BHA’s green, healthy housing and sustainability programs; and expansion of resident empowerment and self-sufficiency initiatives.

Prior to coming to the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), Kate managed affordable housing programs forthe City of Chelsea and the City of Newton. She lives with her family in Roslindale.

Patrick Lee is one of the founders and owners of Trinity Financial, Inc. and Trinity Management, LLC.  Trinity Financial is a 32-year old development company, and with its management affiliate, Trinity Management, the two Trinity companies have more than 250 employees and central offices in Manhattan and Boston.  The companies’ experience includes work developing more than 9,500 units of housing and 600,000 sf of commercial space, at a cost of over $3 billion.  The two Trinity companies develop and manage affordable and market rate housing communities throughout the Northeast, from Massachusetts to New York.

Prior to co-founding Trinity Financial, Inc. in 1987, Mr. Lee served as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Administration and Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mr. Lee was the Secretary’s representative on a number of State boards and agencies including the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, Community Development Finance Corporation, Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency, and the State’s Public Auditorium and Civic Center Grant Program. Mr. Lee has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Government Land Bank, the Roxbury Neighborhood Council, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Boston Center for the Arts, and Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of Wellesley College and the Board of Overseers for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston.  Mr. Lee holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained city planner.

William M. McLaughlin retired from AvalonBay Communities, Inc. in 2021, serving most recently as the Executive Vice President of Development and construction. He had been with AvalonBay or its predecessor, Avalon Properties, Inc., since 1994.

He was responsible for all of AvalonBay’s construction activity nationally, and development activity on the East Coast. He was also a member of the Company’s Management Investment Committee. Before joining AvalonBay, Bill was with Lincoln Property Company for seven years, responsible for multifamily development and acquisitions in eastern New England.

He was the 2008 Chairman of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board (GBREB), was also the Chairman of GBREB’s Political Action Committee (PAC), and is a two-time past President of its Rental Housing Association (RHA, now MAA) division. Bill currently serves on Harvard Corporation’s Committee on Facilities and Capital Planning. He also serves on the Board of Directors at Caritas Communities (and is its Past Chair), the Board of Overseers at Newton Wellesley Hospital, and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Multifamily Leadership Board (Emeritus). He is a long-time member of the Newton Zoning Board of Appeals.

Bill received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Harvard College.

Bill and his wife Linda split their time between Newton, MA, and Cape Cod, and they have six adult children and one grandson.

John F. Barros is the Managing Principal of Cushman & Wakefield's Boston market. In this role, John leads all market activities and drives growth and business performance across a team of more than 180 professionals in Boston, MA, and Manchester, NH.

Before joining Cushman & Wakefield, John was appointed by the Mayor of Boston to serve as Chief of Economic Development from 2014 to 2021. John brought a passion for sustainable community development to this role while fostering economic inclusion and equity for all Bostonians. Before his appointment, John served 13 years as Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), where he successfully led a neighborhood revitalization. It focused on creating community wealth, producing permanent affordable housing, and establishing the country's most important urban community land trust. John has also held positions at the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, providing insurance for initial public offerings for dot-com startups.

John received the inaugural Community Service Award from the Boston Day & Evening Academy in 2008, the Robert Leo Ruffin Award from the Archdiocese of Boston in 2004, and the Action for Boston Community Development Roxbury Community Award in 2000. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1996 and a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts University in 2012. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Commerce Degree from Suffolk University.