Michael A. Stegman is the Director of Policy for the Program on Human and community development. He serves as the Foundation's lead observer of domestic policy issues, working to translate policy trends and position program strategies in affordable housing, community change, mental health, juvenile justice, education, and urban and regional policy within the larger context of local, state and national policy developments.
Stegman is a member of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank Community Development Advisory Council and a former Fellow of the Urban Land Institute. He has served on several national boards, including the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and One Economy Corporation. Prior to joining the Foundation he was the MacRae Professor of Public Policy, Planning, and Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chairman of the Department of Public Policy and founding director of the Center for Community Capitalism. In addition, he has been a consultant to the Fannie Mae Foundation, HUD, the Treasury Department, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI), and the U.S. General Accounting Office. During his tenure as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at HUD, Stegman was named as one of Washington's 100 most influential decision makers by the National Journal. Stegman has written extensively on housing and urban policy, community development, financial services for the poor, and asset development policies. While at HUD, he was founding editor of Cityscape, a journal of urban policy research.
Stegman received his BA from Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and his Masters and Ph.D. in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania.
Valerie Chang Program Officer
Email: vchang at macfound dot org
Valerie Chang is a Program Officer in the Foundation's Program on Human & Community Development. In this position, Chang works primarily on policy research matters relating to the Foundation's domestic grantmaking priorities, which focus on the beneficial outcomes of the relationship between people and place and on systems reform in education, juvenile justice and mental health.
Chang joined the Foundation in June 2003 after two years with the national office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) where she was chief of staff for the Neighborhood Business Development Group (2001-2003), promoting economic development activities through LISC's national network. Prior to this, Chang worked for nearly seven years with several leading private sector organizations, including Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. and Salomon Brothers, Inc. At Merrill Lynch (1996-1999), she was First Vice President, Emerging Markets and Fixed-Income Research, providing research on macroeconomic and political developments in global emerging markets. She did similar work at Salomon Brothers, Inc. (1993-1996), where she was Vice President, Emerging Markets Research, responsible for research on Latin America. Earlier in her career, Chang was an economist in the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board. She has also worked for the U.S.- China Business Council and the Hefei Polytechnical University in Anhui, People's Republic of China.
She has a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale University and an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
Erika C. Poethig Associate Director, Affordable Housing
Email: epoethig at macfound dot org
Erika Poethig is Associate Director for Housing in the Program on Human & Community Development. Her primary focus is on regional policy and practice, housing policy and research, and on the special initiative for the preservation of affordable rental housing.
Before coming to the Foundation in 2001, Poethig was Assistant Commissioner for Policy, Resource and Program Development at the City of Chicago's Department of Housing, where she directed the department's city, state and federal policy agendas. Poethig oversaw staff with responsibilities for policy and research, program evaluation and program development. She developed the Mayor's campaign to prevent foreclosures and stabilize communities and city support for a state-issued tax credit for donations to not-for-profit organizations developing affordable housing. Previously, she was Associate Project Director of the Metropolis Project, which resulted in the creation of the Chicago Metropolis 2020 agenda for regional leadership around the major issues faced by the metropolitan Chicago area.
Poethig was a Phi Beta Kappa from the College of Wooster, a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Vienna, and received her master's in Public Policy from the University of Chicago, with concentrated coursework in Urban Poverty and Inequality.
Phone: (312) 726-8000