Community-Based Research (CBR) brings together the unique knowledge and resources of the community and the University to address questions raised by the community itself. Bringing together diverse perspectives and ways of knowing sheds new light on today’s issues and helps to identify innovative ways to tackle them. CURA believes that communities have the skills and experience to conduct research that produces valuable knowledge grounded in lived experiences.
Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program
Builds community capacity to erase persistent racial and economic disparities in the Twin Cities region
Community Assistantship Program
Builds community capacity to use applied research to solve complex problems in Greater Minnesota
Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing
Support neighborhood leaders in building vital communities that value full participation and embody racial equity and economic justice
Neighborhoods Now!
Build skills and knowledge for place-based community organizing through training and education
Creative Justice: Art as Inquiry, Art as Action
This one-year, part-time opportunity embeds emerging Twin Cities-based artists into CURA’s community-based research and organizing work.
Research, Organizing and Technical Assistance-related events, news, projects and research archive
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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Ishmail Malik Holt-Shabazz
Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities’ Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and its Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing Program as its now Co-Director, Ishmail Malik started as a Union Organizer for the AFL-CIO Wisconsin Statewide and with Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition to promote access, equity, and community benefits of bicycle infrastructure, policy, and engagement.
He also served as the Executive Director and Economic Development Organizer of North Minneapolis’s Harrison Neighborhood Association for 11 years and three years as the City of Saint Paul’s Director of District 6 Planning Council leading in both organizations community engagement projects, racial equitable development initiatives, business development, community benefits agreements, equitable development scorecard strategies, and land use planning. He also served as statewide supervisor for AmeriCorps in the early 2000s.
Also, as of June 10th, 2022, Malik is a registered civil mediator through the Conflict Resolution Center of Minnesota. He received an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts in Human Services with a minor in Sociology from the University of Minnesota Morris. Malik currently sits on the Board of Directors for Twin Cities’ Men’s Center and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability. He is a former long-standing member on multiple grant review committees; multiple Minneapolis neighborhood association and Saint Paul district council volunteer boards as an officer plus in committee positions; is a 2004 graduate of Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing's Neighborhood Organizing Training Program, and is a past member of the Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing Advisory Committee. He is also a former Emergency Services Director for American Red Cross, Northwest Illinois-Rockford chapter.
Malik is a native of Chicago but has lived in Minnesota for over 28 years. His life has centered on family, spirituality, music, dance, and his love for learning, community capacity building, systems change, reparative racial justice, equitable economic development with local community benefits, and direct service. I'm honored.
Ned Wik Moore
Ned Wik Moore has over 20 years of leadership and organizing experience for racial, social, and economic justice. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Global Studies. In college, he studied liberation theology, social movements, and sustainable development in Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragaua. During and after college, he also participated in numerous human rights and international solidarity initiatives including serving as a student delegate, human rights and elections observer in Cuba, El Salvador and Colombia.
Ned worked for 7 years to build power in manufactured home neighborhoods in the Twin Cities suburbs and in Greater Minnesota, as a Community Organizer and Organizing Director at All Parks Alliance for Change (APAC). During that time he organized two dozen resident associations across the state to fight against displacement and parklord abuse which led to dozens local ordinances, successful lawsuits to expand and protect residents rights, improved living conditions, affordable housing preservation and cooperative ownership.
From 2009-2011 he was the Campus Minister for Social Justice at St. Catherine University where he led Justice Immersion Trips with students to El Paso and Denver exploring issues of immigration and homelessnes while exploring the connections between faith, social justice and leadership. He also supported and mentored students organizing in response to US militarism and human rights abuses in Latin America, food justice, 2010 Census, racial justice concerns on campus, and connections to critical community-led initiatives off campus.
For over a decade, Ned assumed various leadership roles in faith-based organizing to advance a relentless struggle demanding a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, training hundreds of community leaders, registering Latinx voters, and organizing countless direct actions in Congressional offices in Minnesota, Washington, D.C. and across the country, also conducting raid response and know your rights trainings, and offering direct support to families at risk of deportation.
Ned’s CURA involvement began in 2004 when he graduated from the Twin Cities Training Program for Neighborhood Organizers, later serving as an Advisory Committee member for CURA’s Minnesota Center for Neighborhood Organizing in 2007. He joined CURA staff in 2011, leading initiatives promoting racial equity and community organizing in response to the proposed build out of the regional light rail transit system in partnership with The Alliance and Nexus Community Partners. In partnership with The Alliance, CURA also supported the founding of Equity in Place, a regional wide coalition and diverse group of strategic partners from organizations led by people of color and housing advocacy organizations.
In 2015, Ned and colleague Malik Holt-Shabazz launched Neighborhoods Now! to support and develop neighborhood organizers and leaders in place-based organizing through a racial equity lens. To date, the program has seen nearly 300 graduates, and Ned has continued to coach, support and mentor dozens of program alumni.
Ned lives in Minneapolis, is a parent and spouse, and writes music.
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