Meet the Experts

Office of Housing and Community Investment 

Ted Wartell, Manager

Expertise: affordable housing, federal housing programs, financial regulation, mortgage finance. Four years managing the Office of Housing and Community Investment since its creation. Prior to FHFA, served as the Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.  He also served as chief of staff for Community Lending at Fannie Mae. Served as Director of the Office of Policy at the U.S. Small Business Administration and as a budget analyst for affordable housing programs at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.   M.P.P., University of Chicago and B.A., Northwestern University.

Rona Richardson, Administrative Office Manager

Expertise: office administration, new technology implementation, federal records management and other federal administrative protocols. Ten years at FHFA, having been transferred with the rest of HUD's Enterprise mission oversight staff, with which she had worked for eight years in the GSE offices.  While at HUD she was recognized for her work on special projects involving HUD's Community Builders program, databases, reorganizations and procurement within the Office of Personnel.  She carries out all administrative duties for OHCI and is OHCI's Records Management Liaison.

Paul Manchester, Principal Economist

Expertise: affordable housing economics.  Taught economics at university level for 7 years; Senior Economist, Joint Economic Committee of Congress (JEC), 11 years; Financial Economist, Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), 1.5 years;  Senior Economist, Director of Financial Institutions Regulation Division (mission regulation of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac), Office of Policy Development & Research (PD&R), Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), 1991-2008. Organized numerous Congressional hearings, prepared many studies & research reports, gave various presentations while at JEC, OTS, HUD.B.A., Mathematics & Economics, Yale U; Ph.D., Economics, U. of Minnesota.

Enterprise Housing Goals Team

Padmasini Raman, Team Lead, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: U.S. housing finance and mortgage markets, Government Sponsored Entities and the FHA, mortgage market economic trends, modeling and policy. Over three years as the Team Lead for the Enterprise Housing Goals team at FHFA. Four years as Senior Economist in the Division of Housing Finance within the Office of Policy Development and Research at HUD as the subject matter expert for underwriting, origination and servicing policy related to FHA forward and reverse mortgages. Before that, Padma spent over ten years in various roles at Fannie Mae, developing and overseeing the development of economic analysis, reports and policy related to collateral and credit risk. She also served as a product manager interacting with Fannie Mae's partners. Ph.D. in Economics, Rutgers University.

Ken Lam, Senior Economist

Expertise: Mortgage market modelling and forecasting, Default/prepayment models, loan modifications, underwriting standards, and program evaluation. Seven years at FHFA in OPAR and OHCI.  Prior to FHFA, Ken spent thirteen years at the consulting firm Abt Associates, where he conducted research on Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) and FHA's American Dream Downpayment Initiative (ADDI).  MPP in public policy and econometrics, University of Minnesota.

Omena E. Ubogu, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Quantitative analysis, data management and modeling. Joined FHFA in September 2018. Twelve years in real estate research and forecasting at CoStar Group. M.A. in Applied Economics, University of Michigan.

Jeannie Shattuck Lemons, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Federal affordable housing and community development policy, research, communications, policy analysis. Three years at FHFA in OHCI. More than 5 years on the policy team at Enterprise Community Partners. MA in Public Policy, Duke University; BA in Government/Political Science, Franklin & Marshall College.

Duty to Serve Team

Arun Barman, Senior Economist

Expertise: Housing finance and mortgage markets, economic modeling and trends, metropolitan and regional housing market analysis, high-LTV refinance programs, affordable housing programs, data visualization, policy analysis, and program management. Barman has worked at FHFA for over five years in various roles, in OPAR, OFAMS and now leading data analytics and monitoring of the Duty to Serve program. Barman joined FHFA in February 2014 from Deloitte and Touche where he provided risk analysis for Ginnie Mae.  He also worked as a Research Economist at the National Association of Realtors, and Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Brookings Institution. Master's degree, London School of Economics. M.A., University of Toledo. B.A., U.C.L.A.

Rebecca Cohen, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing programs, state and local housing and land use policy, policy analysis, and program evaluation. Cohen joined FHFA in 2019. Prior to that she was an Associate at Abt Associates, where she worked on projects related to state and local affordable housing policy, homelessness, disaster response and recovery, and financial literacy and asset-building.  Before Abt, Cohen was at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she supported BPC's Housing Commission in developing recommendations for reform of the U.S. housing finance system; and the Center for Housing Policy. Cohen received a Master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Lauren Boyd, Policy Analyst

Expertise:  Affordable housing programs, policy analysis.  Boyd joined FHFA in August 2020.  Prior to that she was a Jr. Analyst at The Cloudburst Group where she held the coordinator role for projects supporting the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs.  Boyd earned a Master’s degree in Public Policy focusing on Urban Policy from George Washington University a B.S. in Political Science and Mass Communication from Towson University. 

Toi N. Roberts, Program Analyst

Expertise: Executive office management and administration, project management tracking and organization, records and information management, budget planning and execution, contracting representative, computer software technology and implementation. Joined the agency in year 2000 when it was formally the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). Provided executive assistance to the Director’s office under four Directors. Throughout her tenure, she has assisted the Capital program office in the writing of the Risk-Based Capital (RBC) rule, developed and maintained the agency executive review tracking system and process, and served as the COR on the agency’s HARP Campaign project.

Federal Home Loan Banks Affordable Housing Program Team

Marcea Barringer, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable rental housing finance, low-moderate income homeownership, housing and community development policy analysis.  Prior to joining FHFA, Marcea spent nine years at NeighborWorks America, including three as senior director for policy. She has over twenty years of experience in the affordable housing field, including as a technical assistance provider, CDFI lender, and Low Income Housing Tax Credit syndicator.  M.P.A. and certificate in Urban and Regional Planning, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University; B.A. in Architectural Studies, Brown University.

Deattra Perkins, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing and community development regulation, policy, data analytics, research and FHLBank examinations.  More than 14 years at FHFA/FHFB as a Senior Policy Analyst.  Five years as a Financial and Program Analyst at the Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.  M.B.A., University of Iowa. B.B.A. (Finance), Howard University.

Danielle Safran, Senior Economist

Expertise: Data analysis and data visualization, financial research, and technical writing. Responsible for the end-to-end production of the Low-Income Housing and Community Development Activities of the Federal Home Loan Banks report for the last seven consecutive years, including report writing and editing, all data analyzes and visualizations, and external presentation to report stakeholders. Data expertise in Federal Home Loan Bank housing programs. Additional Federal Home Loan Bank experience includes market risk board reporting, corporate and board governance, executive compensation, and speechwriting. Before FHFA, Danielle worked in middle-market mergers and acquisitions, as well as media and economic statistics. She holds an M.B.A. from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, and a B.A. in Economics, cum laude, from Harvard University.

Tiffani Moore, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: affordable housing and homelessness program regulatory and policy development, analysis and implementation; program monitoring and compliance. Joined FHFA in February 2017. Provides expert regulatory and policy development and analysis for the Federal Home Loan Banks' affordable housing and community investment programs. Prior to joining FHFA, Tiffani worked for 9 ½ years as a Senior Affordable Housing Specialist in the Office of Community Planning & Development at HUD, and administered the Housing Trust Fund. She was a subject matter expert on Community Housing Development Organizations, homelessness, and veterans' issues within the HOME Program. She previously served at HUD as Team Lead of the Continuum of Care Program Regulations and Policy Team, and a Community Planning and Development Representative in the Richmond, VA Field Office providing oversight for the CDBG, HOME, ADDI, ESG, Shelter Plus Care, and the Supportive Housing Program. Previously, she was a Planner for the Harris County, TX Community and Economic Development Department. MBA, University of Virginia; Master of Urban Planning with a concentration in community and economic development, University of Michigan; and BA in English, magna cum laude, Dillard University.

Eric Howard, Principal Policy Analyst

Expertise: Regulatory and policy development, program development and implementation, equal employment opportunity, affirmative employment, special emphasis programs, diversity outreach initiatives. Twelve years at FHFA including 18 months with OHCI developing the proposed and final rules for the AHP. Previously at FHFA Eric served as Deputy Director Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, and EEO and Diversity Director.  Eric spent twelve years at the Farm Credit Administration as a senior policy analyst, EEO Director, and commissioned examiner. MS, Human Resources Management and Services, University of Maryland; BA in Finance, Oklahoma State University.

Federal Home Loan Banks Housing Goals Team

Ethan Handelman, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Affordable housing policy, multifamily rental housing, affordable homeownership, subsidy programs, public-private partnerships, program design and housing finance.  Started at FHFA in February 2018. Developed proposed rule for FHLBank Housing Goals and leads the project team. Prior to joining FHFA, he spent seven years as Vice President for Policy and Advocacy at the National Housing Conference (NHC), finishing his time as Acting CEO during a transition. Prior to NHC, he spent ten years at Recap Real Estate Advisors.  As lead of the advisory practice he assisted public- and private-sector clients to understand and shape the affordable housing financial and policy environment. MA in International Relations, Harvard University, B.A. in Political Science, University of Michigan.

Michael Price, Senior Policy Analyst

Expertise: Manufactured housing, force-placed insurance, repurchase alternatives, charter acts, Duty to Serve, Enterprise & Federal Home Loan Bank housing goals and AHP. Started with FHFA in February 2009; previously served at Department of Housing & Urban Development overseeing the Enterprises. Projects have included developing regulations, monitoring compliance, developing executive briefing materials (talking points, Q&A, Backgrounders), analyzing legislation, instructing agency staff in securitization basics, and representing the agency at public speaking events. Law degree and bachelor's degree, University of Georgia. Member of the District of Columbia Bar and the State Bar of Georgia.

National Mortgage Database Program

Robert B. Avery, Project Director

Avery is the overall director of the National Mortgage Database Project. He joined FHFA in that capacity after retiring as a Senior Economist from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the fall of 2012. Previously he had held positions as a Professor at Cornell University and as an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His work at the Federal Reserve focused on supervisory issues related to community affairs and bank supervision. He was a coauthor of a number of studies in these areas including the Federal Reserve’s Congressional Report on Disparate impact in Credit Scoring, and Federal Reserve Bulletin articles on the 2004 through 2011 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and revisions to the Community Reinvestment Act in 2005. He was also one of the founders of the tri-annual Survey of Consumer Finances and designed the loan sampling systems used for the Federal Reserve’s examinations of small bank safety and soundness and for large syndicated loans. He has a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ian Keith, Senior Program Analyst

Keith is responsible for the data management and quality control of the National Mortgage Database. He specializes in SAS® software. He is an expert in Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, Census tract demographic data, and FHFA’s Enterprise affordable housing goals. Prior to joining FHFA, he spent 17 years at the Department of Housing and Urban Development primarily with the Office of Policy Development and Research in the Financial Institutions Regulation Division before transferring to FHFA in 2009. He has a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.S. in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Ismail Mohamed, Senior Financial Analyst

Mohamed is responsible for overseeing the matching of administrative and other third-party data into the National Mortgage Database. He joined the National Mortgage Database team from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where he had worked as a contractor for 13 years. He has over 20 years of solid technical expertise in statistical software, applications development, data analysis, and applied economic research. During his tenure with the Office of Policy Development and Research, Mohamed supported HUD’s mission regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac until that responsibility was transferred to FHFA. Afterward, he continued as lead architect and developer in vital HUD projects including the analyses of Federal Housing Administration, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Home Affordable Modification Program, Mortgage Loan Performance, and McDash data, and the development of HUD’s Housing Scorecard. He also led HUD’s implementation of the agency-wide SAS® Enterprise Business Intelligence System that supported over 300 HUD SAS users. Mohamed was author and coauthor in papers covering the practical implementation of time series, applications of neural networks, program planning and evaluation, and international development. He received a M.S. from the University of Maryland, and a M.S. and a Ph.D. from Iowa State University.

Saty Patrabansh, Manager / Supervisory Economist

Patrabansh manages the administration of the National Mortgage Database program at FHFA and bears overall responsibility for the National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO) and American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers (ASMB). He specializes in researching home purchase and mortgage refinancing, including first-time homebuyers and rural borrowers; mortgage delinquency, foreclosure prevention and homeownership retention; and foreclosure and property disposition. Previously at FHFA, he was a Senior Economist in the Office of Policy Analysis and Research and worked on research and analysis related to HARP, REO disposition, and non-performing loans. Prior to joining FHFA, he was a Data Center Director and Project Director at Abt Associates, a government research and consulting firm. There he specialized in program evaluation and policy research, particularly in the areas of housing policy and housing finance for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), including studies of the Enterprises and FHA. He also led data and evaluation projects for HUD, the Census Bureau and Food and Nutrition Services. He holds an M.P.P. specializing in econometrics, finance, and evaluation from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Grinnell College.

Jay Schultz, Senior Economist

Schultz is responsible for developing and implementing critical components of the National Mortgage Database, including imputations. He joined FHFA in 2009 when the housing goal responsibility was transferred from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he had worked in the Office of Policy Development and Research for 12 years and the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity for 2 years. His work at HUD focused on developing regulations and evaluating the performance of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac toward the statutorily required housing goals. Prior to working for the Federal Government, he held the position of Chief Economist for the Missouri Department of Insurance where he headed the Statistics Section which is responsible for collecting and analyzing data on underwriting and losses paid for all lines of insurance. His research focuses on affordable housing and mortgage market issues as well as property insurance as it relates to affordable housing and community development. He has a B.S. in Economics from Michigan Technological University and a Ph.D. in Economics/Finance from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Rebecca Sullivan, Economist

Sullivan supports data management and analysis of the National Mortgage Database, focusing primarily on the National Survey of Mortgage Originations. She graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in economics, focusing on public policy and statistical modeling. She came to the NMDB team from her role as a research assistant at the University of Maryland. In that role, she managed databases consisting of economic, demographic, and voting data.

Office of Financial Analysis, Modeling and Simulations

Housing Finance Research and Analysis

Michael Groarke, Senior Policy Analyst, MBA

Michael Groarke has extensive experience in single family and multifamily housing markets, as well as in affordable housing. He has played an important role in teams focusing on housing research and policy development, and in the development of affordable housing goals for the Enterprises.  He previously worked at HUD, with the CIA, and with several other government agencies and firms. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from Columbia University and his MBA from the business school at the College of William & Mary.

Office of Policy Analysis and Research

Alex N. Bogin, Ph.D., Senior Economist

Bogin is responsible for developing historically-based shocks to several key market risk factors including interest rates, implied volatility, and option-adjusted spreads. These risk factor shocks will be incorporated into a proposed revision to the market risk based capital rule for the Federal Home Loan Banks. Alex has expertise in urban economics, applied econometrics, and financial modeling. Recent publications include “Generating Historically-Based Stress Scenarios Using Parsimonious Factorization" 2013; “No Base Left Behind: The Impact of Military Base Closures on Educational Expenditures and Outcomes" 2013; and “Winning Pays: High School Football Championships and Property Values" 2013.  Alex joined FHFA in 2012 after graduating from Syracuse University with a Ph.D. in Economics.

Chi-Cheol Chung, Senior Financial Analyst

Chung is responsible for leading research on the housing affordability. Recently he published a research paper on a new home affordability estimate. At FHFA, he serves as an expert in data and modeling, credit and market risk assessment, risk-based capital framework and policy analysis including FHFA’s Neighborhood Stabilization Initiatives. Prior to FHFA, he worked at various organizations including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Barclays, focusing on fixed income capital markets and market risk management. He received a business degree from the University of Virginia with concentration of finance, economics and marketing.

Justin Contat, Ph.D., Economist

Contat has a B.S. in Mathematics (University of Florida) and a PhD in Economics (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and joined FHFA in 2019. Besides being a member of the team that produces the House Price Index (HPI), he conducts research in housing and mortgage finance. Some of his research includes analyzing the effect of asymmetric information on mortgage contracts (for which he won the 2019 ARES Best Finance Paper Award), the effect of home warranties on home buyers and sellers, the effects of elections on home prices, and the strategic incentives of seller disclosures in real estate listings,  among many others. Though trained as a micro theorist, he focuses most of his research on empirical projects.

Will Doerner, Ph.D., Supervisory Economist

Doerner leads a team that focuses on topics like mortgage collateral and market trends. His group is responsible for House Price Index (HPI) production and related research. He has published over a dozen articles in academic journals on a range of topics like finance, housing, property taxation, and policing. Several papers have received “best paper” recognitions from professional organizations and publisher. He has received teaching awards for university courses that he designed and taught on housing markets and land use regulations. His work has been covered by major news outlets, trade associations, and think tanks. Will brings a combination of practical and academic experiences that include being appointed as a Commissioner for the Prince George's County Planning Board, serving on the Hyattsville Planning Committee, and working in property appraisal and valuation for both state and county agencies in Florida. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Florida State University), M.S. in Economics (Florida State University), and a B.S. in Mathematics-Economics and Urban Studies (Furman University). 

Debra Fuller, ABD, Principal Financial Engineer/Economist

Fuller is a responsible for managing research projects from data collection, validation and loading into QRM, 3rd party vendor behavioral model and term structure and other assumptions set-up and validation, resolution of IT/vendor issues, including debugging and RAM and disk space issues, and validation and analysis of vendor and proprietary FHFA model results. Debra also is responsible for documentation of aforementioned processes and writing of white papers and presentations. She has expertise in SAS, default/prepayment modeling, market risk, credit risk, and project management. Published work includes “Economic Impact Analysis of the Port of Tampa," USDA white papers, FHFA Risk-based Capital Rule and an FHFA Countercyclical working paper. She has earned a BA International Relations/Spanish (University of South Florida), MS Economics (University of Florida), and was a Ph.D. Candidate ABD (University of Miami). Several FHFA awards, including the Director's Award for work on principal forgiveness.

William D. Larson, Ph.D., Senior Economist

Larson has established a diverse portfolio of high quality research, which includes publications in the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Real Estate Economics, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences since completing his Ph.D. in 2011 at the George Washington University. At FHFA, he serves as an expert in house price indices, urban and regional economics, and the economics of natural disasters. Prior to his arrival, he worked at the Washington Post in the Research and Analytics department, and at the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Office of the Chief Statistician. He is an active member of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, the Regional Science Association, and the Urban Economics Association.

David Roderer, Senior Financial Analyst

Roderer is responsible for the Annual Guarantee Fee Report and the Monthly Interest Rate Survey.  Over the last four years he has worked extensively on finding the appropriate level of guarantee fees.  He has been with the FHFA and FHFB for 11 years in the Office of Policy Analysis & Research and the Division of Bank Regulation.  Before that he worked for the OCC for ten years, in Economics and Compliance.  He has a B.A. in Mathematics from Macalester College.

William Shen, M.R.P., Principal Policy Analyst

Shen focuses on housing finance policy and policy research. From 2012 to 2013, he was on detail assignment to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, where he assisted with drafting housing finance reform bills. More recently, he has studied the single-family rental market, developed and reviewed credit risk transfer transactions, represented FHFA on the intergovernmental Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), and provided technical assistance on proposed legislation and federal regulations. Before joining FHFA in 2012, he served at the Department of the Treasury and at the U. S. Senate's Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP. Earlier, he spent five years at HUD, where he founded and led a new office charged with rehabilitating public housing authorities in federal receivership, and later served as the Senior Advisor to the President of Ginnie Mae. Prior to HUD, he worked in commercial real estate finance and development at the financial services firm Legg Mason. He holds a B.A. in government from University of Virginia and a Master of Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, with a curriculum that combined training in urban planning at its School of Design and real estate finance at its Wharton School.

Jessica Shui, Ph.D., Senior Economist

Shui joined FHFA as a junior Economist after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Economics in 2016. During her graduate study, she has worked on topics in behavior economics and real estate economics with applications in real estate brokerage service. Her recent research mainly focuses on the economic implications of real estate appraisals and geographic variations of add-on value of house hedonics.

Ron Sugarman, Principal Legislative Analyst

Sugarman has more than 30 years of experience in federal housing finance programs. His recent work has focused on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee fee policy analysis, Dodd-Frank implementation (credit risk retention and swap margin rules), writing a working paper on the National Survey of Mortgage Originations, writing part of the Enterprise capital rule, and international coordination. Prior to joining OFHEO (one of FHFA's predecessor agencies), he worked at HUD on the FHA and Ginnie Mae programs. ​He earned his B.A. in Quantitative Studies at Johns Hopkins University.​

Anju Vajja, Associate Director

Anju is the Associate Director of the Office of Policy Analysis and Research. She leads a team of economists and analysts that focus on research affecting housing finance and financial markets, analysis supporting pricing and servicing decisions, and analysis evaluating policy implications of proposed legislations and programs.  Her office also prepares data series and publications, including the FHFA House Price Index.  Prior to this, she served over 10 years in Federal Home Loan Bank supervision as an expert in credit risk modeling.  She also worked for about 10 years at the World Bank on community development program evaluations and research.  She holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Georgetown University), M.A. in Economics (Delhi School of Economics, India), and Financial Risk Manager and Professional Risk Manager certifications.

Date last updated: October 22, 2020