The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is proud to announce the recipients of its 12th annual Urban Leadership Awards, which recognize leaders who are guiding cities toward a sustainable and vibrant future. The 2016 awardees are Angela Glover Blackwell, President & CEO of PolicyLink, and Jeremy Nowak, President of J Nowak and Associates. Penn IUR will honor the work of these exceptional leaders on April 7th at its 12th annual Urban Leadership Forum.

Angela Glover Blackwell, President and CEO, started PolicyLink in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.

Jeremy Nowak operates a consulting firm that specializes in social investment, urban policy, and strategy. He was the President of the William Penn Foundation in 2011 and 2012, where he developed the blueprint for their current grant making. Currently he is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Scholar at the Penn Institute for Urban Research, and former chair of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

The Annual Penn IUR Urban Leadership Awards recognize exemplary thinkers who have demonstrated the vision to revitalize urban centers, respond to urban crises, and champion urban sustainability in the United States and around the globe. This year’s awardees exemplify true urban visionaries and the transformative effects such leaders can have on the fabric of the cities in which they work.

All media interested in attending the award event on April 7th can contact Deborah Lang at dlang@upenn.edu or 215-880-2372.

About the Penn IUR Urban Leadership Award
Since 2005, Penn IUR has recognized innovators in urban affairs through the Urban Leadership Award. Past recipients include, among others, Michael Nutter, Former Mayor of Philadelphia; Renée Lewis Glover, Chair, Board of Directors, Habitat for Humanity International, and Former President and CEO, Atlanta Housing Authority; Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon, co-founders of Project HOME Joan Clos, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and former Mayor of Barcelona, Spain; Yael Lehmann, Executive Director of The Food Trust; Ridwan Kamil, Founder and Principal of Urbane Indonesia.

About Penn IUR
Penn IUR is dedicated to advancing cross-disciplinary urban-focused research, instruction, and civic engagement on issues relevant to cities around the world. As the global population becomes increasingly urban, understanding cities is vital to informed decision-making and public policy at the local, national, and international levels. Penn IUR focuses on research that informs the sustainable and inclusive 21st-century city. By providing a forum for collaborative scholarship and instruction at Penn and beyond, Penn IUR stimulates research and engages with urban practitioners and policymakers to inform urban policy.

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