Organizations and agencies serve neighborhoods best when community representatives are part of their leadership and decision-making. The Charles R. Krusell Fellowship is designed to increase the number of highly trained community development professionals from historically underrepresented communities and to provide hands-on work experience to ensure students are prepared to meet the challenges of the evolving community development field.
Krusell Fellows receive full tuition support and graduate research assistantships with community development or planning agencies. The program is a partnership between CURA and the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Students applying for the Master of Urban and Regional Planning and Master of Public Policy programs are eligible to apply. Selection decisions will not consider protected identity characteristics consistent with legal requirements.
About Charles Krusell
Charles Krusell was a pillar in the Twin Cities development community. The Krusell Fellowship honors his support for public housing and urban renewal in the neighborhoods that needed it most.
Edward Goetz
Edward G. Goetz is director of CURA and a faculty member at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Ed specializes in housing and local community development planning and policy. His research focuses on issues of race and poverty and how they affect housing policy planning and development. Before coming to the University of Minnesota in 1988, he worked at the mayor's Office of Housing and Economic Development in San Francisco and for several nonprofit community developers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He has served on the board of directors of nonprofit housing agencies in the Twin Cities, and on several regional commissions related to affordable housing and development.
He is the author of The One-Way Street of Integration: Fair Housing and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in American Cities (Cornell University Press, 2018), New Deal Ruins: Race, Economic Justice, and Public Housing Policy (Cornell University Press, 2013), Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America (2003, Urban Institute Press), Shelter Burden: Local Politics and Progressive Housing Policy (1993, Temple University Press), and co-editor of The New Localism: Comparative Urban Politics in a Global Era (1993, Sage Publications).
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Lee Guekguezian
Lee Guekguezian (she/her) is a community-based researcher committed to decision-making justice and elevating lived experiences through research. As a program director at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), they lead initiatives that connect university resources with community-driven projects across Minnesota. Their work focuses on facilitating trust-based collaborations, translating complex findings into accessible narratives, and using data visualization to explore patterns of displacement, ownership, and investment.
Lee holds a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and a degree in Geography from Macalester College. Their experience spans affordable housing policy and funding, spatial analysis, and program evaluation, working to democratize research and data to amplify community narratives. Outside of work, Lee enjoys biking around the Twin Cities, making rugs, and being a regular at iPho in St. Paul.
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