Claudia Aiken

Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP)

Profile

Claudia Aiken joined PennPraxis as a Research Associate in Spring 2018. She is Director of the Housing Initiative at Penn (HIP). Her research focuses on housing policy in the context of declining federal resources, racial and socioeconomic inequity, and neighborhood change. She has worked as a consultant in municipal housing planning processes and completed housing studies using both qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

Claudia holds a Master of Science in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia. She has also studied urban planning in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lyon, France. Her graduate work includes a thesis on regional collaboration to promote housing affordability and “Dealing with Gentrification,” a project that examines the links between neighborhood change and housing insecurity.

Previously, Claudia has been a Graduate Fellow with the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation and has worked as a policy research intern for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Work and Research