About

The Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action leverages a multidisciplinary approach to cultivate discussions and develop actions that foster community transformation.
 

People

Leadership

Neil McCullagh

Neil McCullagh

Executive Director


617-552-0829
Carney Hall 430

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Neil McCullagh

Neil McCullagh

Executive Director

| 617-552-0829 | Carney Hall 430

  • 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

Taylor Perkins

Taylor Perkins

Associate Director


Office Hours Spring 2024 - Monday 3-4:30 & By Appointment
Carney Hall 431

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Taylor Perkins

Taylor Perkins

Associate Director

| Office Hours Spring 2024 - Monday 3-4:30 & By Appointment | Carney Hall 431

  • 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

Affiliated Faculty

Faculty affiliated with the Corcoran Center conduct teaching and research that aligns with the Center's mission of improving neighborhoods and communities.
Matthew Littell

Matthew Littell



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Matthew Littell

Matthew Littell

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

Samantha Teixeira



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Samantha Teixeira

Samantha Teixeira

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.

David Price

David Price



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David Price

David Price

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)

 

Neil McCullagh

Neil McCullagh



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Neil McCullagh

Neil McCullagh

Taylor Perkins

Taylor Perkins



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Taylor Perkins

Taylor Perkins

What We Do

In accordance with the mission of  Boston College, The Corcoran Center aims to develop the next generation of ethical real estate professionals by educating and inspiring students, alumni, and other key stakeholders so they may harness real estate as a catalyst for needed change in areas where the marginalization of vulnerable citizens is most severe, and enact broad scope solutions to neighborhoods of concentrated poverty.

Curriculum: Increase access to traditional classroom learning, with real estate courses developed by the Center within the Carroll School of Management.

Experiential Learning: Engage students in a variety of practical, meaningful learning experiences, including workshop trainings, field projects, and summer internship programs.

On-Campus Engagement: Invite students to join the network of professionals and experts in the fields of real estate and urban revitalization through a speaker series, small group lunches, and Center coordinated activities.

Neighborhood Engagement: Create opportunities for multiple disciplines from across the University to engage in place-focused neighborhood strengthening.

Undergraduate Real Estate Council Leadership 2023-2024

Justine Rozenich '25

Justine Rozenich '25

Co-President



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Justine Rozenich '25

Justine Rozenich '25

Co-President

Dawson Jessee '25

Dawson Jessee '25

Co-President



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Dawson Jessee '25

Dawson Jessee '25

Co-President

Patrick McMahon '26

Patrick McMahon '26

Vice-President



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Patrick McMahon '26

Patrick McMahon '26

Vice-President

Program Staff

Julia Turner

Julia Turner

Administrative Assistant



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Julia Turner

Julia Turner

Administrative Assistant

Board of Advisors

Bryce Blair 

Director; Pulte Homes, Regency Centers

Rodger Brown, MCAS '77

Managing Director, Preservation of Affordable Housing  

Michael Corcoran, MCAS '86, P'15, '20

President, Corcoran Jennison Companies

 

Karen Kelleher, MCAS '90

President, BlueHub Loan Fund

Carol Naughton

President and CEO, Purpose Built Communities

Darin Davidson

President, Inland Group

 

Visiting Professionals

Kate Bennett

Kate Bennett

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2024



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Kate Bennett

Kate Bennett

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2024

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

Patrick Lee

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2023



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Patrick Lee

Patrick Lee

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2023

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 McLaughlin

William McLaughlin

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2023



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William McLaughlin

William McLaughlin

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional, Fall 2023

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 Barros

John Barros

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional Spring 2022



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John Barros

John Barros

Corcoran Center Visiting Professional Spring 2022

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.

Prior Years Corcoran Center Undergraduate Real Estate Council Presidents

2023-2024

Brigid Hanczor

Brigid Hanczor

MCAS '24
Co-President


After BC:
• Incoming Fund Management Analyst at R4 Capital

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Brigid Hanczor

Brigid Hanczor

MCAS '24

Co-President

| After BC: | • Incoming Fund Management Analyst at R4 Capital

Katia Barker

Katia Barker

MCAS '24
Co-President


After BC:
• Incoming Community Development Banking Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

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Katia Barker

Katia Barker

MCAS '24

Co-President

| After BC: | • Incoming Community Development Banking Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

About Joseph E. Corcoran

In Memoriam. 1936–2020

The Corcoran Luncheon was held in the Heights Room at Corcoran Commons and the TREC Symposium was held in Robsham Theatre at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on November 6, 2014.Rose Lincoln Photo for Boston College

Joseph E. Corcoran left his mark on Boston College, the City of Boston, and the world as a compassionate and discerning man who made a monumental impact on housing equality. After graduating from BC with a degree in history in 1959, Joe founded the Corcoran Jennison Companies, which has developed more than $3.5 billion in property to date and is credited with pioneering the development and management of mixed-income housing. Inspired by his experience growing up in a socioeconomically diverse Dorchester neighborhood, as well as by the University’s Ignatian values, he devoted his life to creating housing opportunities and transforming underserved urban communities. He also worked tirelessly to further housing legislation in Massachusetts and he founded The American City Coalition (TACC), a Boston-based nonprofit that promotes neighborhood revitalization.

At BC, Joe served on the Board of Trustees and chaired the Building and Property Committee. For several years, he also taught a Real Estate and Urban Action course at the Carroll School of Management. His love for teaching was evident, and he eagerly encouraged his students to search for solutions to social and economic problems in the housing industry. Out of his passion and generosity grew the Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action, which he endowed in 2014. His legacy will live on with future generations of real estate professionals who seek not only a career but also the opportunity to improve lives through their work.

Joe Corcoran will be dearly missed, at BC as well as in the countless communities he’s touched. His dedication is a preeminent example of what BC strives to instill in all who find their way to the Heights: a desire to serve others, and the knowledge to do so effectively.

Joe Corcoran will be dearly missed, at BC as well as in the countless communities he’s touched. His dedication is a preeminent example of what BC strives to instill in all who find their way to the Heights: a desire to serve others, and the knowledge to do so effectively.

Partners

On-Campus Partners


On-Campus partners are Boston College schools, departments, offices, and centers that collaborate with the Corcoran Center on an ongoing basis.

  • Boston College School of Social Work
  • Carroll School of Management
  • Connell School of Nursing
  • Theater Department
  • Environmental Studies Program
  • Volunteer and Service Learning Center
  • 4Boston

Community Partners


The Corcoran Center engages with the community through ongoing partnerships with community groups, nonprofits, government agencies, and the business community.

  • Mattapan United
  • Mattapan Main Streets
  • MassHousing
  • MAPC