ULI San Francisco is pleased to announce the three individuals selected for the 2022 Chamberlin Graduate Student Fellowship and Chamberlin YLG Public & Non-Profit Sector Fellowship.

These prestigious fellowships help to advance the careers of Bay Area graduate students and Young Leaders. Our fellows are chosen for their leadership potential in the field of land use and real estate.

Through this program, fellows have the opportunity to attend the ULI Spring and Fall Meetings, guest on a national Product Council, and gain mentorship from seasoned industry leaders. Fellows are exposed to thought leadership around planning, design, real estate, and land use in order to prime them to take on future challenges in urban land use.

The Chamberlin Graduate Student is made possible by Stephen and Susan Chamberlin and Bruce Etkin. The YLG Public & Non-Profit Sector Fellowships is made possible by Stephen and Susan Chamberlin.

Congratulations to our new fellows!

Chamberlin Young Leader in the Public/Nonprofit Sector Fellow

Elizabeth Kuwada is an affordable housing developer with a wide range of experience managing the development and preservation of housing throughout the Bay Area. She is an Associate Director of Real Estate Development with Mercy Housing, the nation’s largest non-profit affordable housing provider. She currently oversees and supports affordable housing and community development within the 50-acre Sunnydale HOPE SF project, the revitalization of San Francisco’s largest public housing community into a mixed-income neighborhood. Before joining Mercy Housing, Elizabeth worked for Eden Housing in Hayward, CA and Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation in Boston, MA. Prior to her career in affordable housing, Elizabeth worked as an architectural designer. Elizabeth received a Master in City Planning and a Master of Science in Real Estate Development from MIT, where she additionally received an Urban Design Certificate, and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Yale University. In her free time, Elizabeth enjoys traveling near and far, embarking on DIY projects, and spending time outside with her dachshund mix puppy, Ringo.

Chamberlin Graduate Student Fellows

Casey Pond

Casey Pond is a student in the Abbey Master of Real Estate Development and Design (MRED+D) program in UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

Prior to joining UC Berkeley’s MRED+D program, Casey worked for the Urban Land Institute San Francisco (ULI SF), allowing her to explore her interest in real estate and passion for sustainable and equitable land use and development. As a Senior Associate, Casey supported the work of ULI SF’s many members, committees, and initiatives, including Housing the Bay, the Young Leaders Group (YLG), and the Sustainability Committee.

Casey received her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and Business Communications from UC Santa Barbara. She is a Bay Area native and following the completion of her MRED+D degree Casey hopes to contribute to the development of equitable and resilient spaces and communities and be part of the solution for our region’s housing and affordability crisis.

Esmeralda Jardines

Originally from East Los Angeles and now based in San Francisco, Esmeralda Jardines joins the Urban Land Institute (ULI) while pursuing the Abbey Master of Real Estate Development + Design (MRED+D) degree at the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design (CED), where she previously received a B.A. in Urban Studies, after careers in both Architecture and City Planning.

Esmeralda has joined ULI and is pursuing the Abbey MRED+D because she is interested in the intersection of real estate investment, finance, urban design, and land use law as well as the role that all aforementioned have in the built environment. She is motivated to learn to how to develop and build affordable, equitable, and climate-resilient buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. She hopes to utilize and access the multifaceted networks at ULI; Esmeralda is grateful and feels humbled, honored, and indebted to have been selected as a ULI Chamberlin Graduate Student Fellow. She recognizes that ULI will provide her with the resources needed to meet, expand, and invest in a network of like-minded real estate development professionals that are trying to make a difference, one crisis at a time, with the tools at their disposal, the built environment.

She would like to convey her tremendous gratitude and appreciation to the Urban Land Institute!