Karen L. Black is the CEO of May 8 Consulting and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania in the Urban Studies Department. Black is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Drexel University Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. In addition, Black is the co-founder of the Healthy Rowhouse Project, an initiative to improve access to private capital for preservation of privately owned affordable housing that has leveraged over $100 million in public and private capital. Black is the author of award-winning publications discussing strategies to revitalize communities, preserve and create affordable housing and attract private investment. Black taught a course on public policy responses to gentrification at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2015. Prior to beginning her consulting practice, Black was the founding director of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Policy Center, a region-wide policy center founded to research issues impacting the economy, environment and equity within the Philadelphia metropolitan region. Prior to that, Black spent 12 years as a practicing civil rights attorney. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College and a Doctorate of Law from the University of California at Los Angeles.