About CC+S
Deborah McKoy
Executive Director, PhD and MPA
Deborah L. McKoy (she/her) is the Executive Director and Founder of the UC Berkeley Center for Cities + Schools at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development and a Research Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of educational reform, urban & metropolitan planning, community development, and public policy.
Jeff Vincent
Director of Public Infrastructure Initiatives
Jeff Vincent co-founded CC+S with Deborah McKoy and is currently the Center’s Director of Public Infrastructure Initiatives. In this role, he leads numerous research projects and facilitates many of the center’s research and policy partnerships in California and across the country.
Shirl Buss
Y-PLAN Creative Director
Shirl Buss is a designer, educator and urban planner. For more than 25 years, Shirl has worked with children and adults on architectural, interpretive design and community development projects, with a specialty in consensus-based participation in the design process.
Sara Hinkley
California Program Manager
Sara Hinkley is the California Program Manager at CC+S. She leads the center’s work on education workforce housing and conducts research and policy analysis on equitable school facilities in California.
Deborah McKoy | Executive Director, PhD and MPA
Deborah L. McKoy is the Executive Director and Founder of the UC Berkeley Center for Cities + Schools at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development and a lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research and teaching focus on the intersection of educational reform, urban & metropolitan planning, community development, and public policy.
Jeff Vincent | Director of Public Infrastructure Initiatives
Jeff Vincent co-founded CC+S with Deborah McKoy and is currently the Center’s Director of Public Infrastructure Initiatives. In this role, he leads numerous research projects and facilitates many of the center’s research and policy partnerships in California and across the country.
Shirl Buss | Y-PLAN Creative Director
Shirl Buss is a designer, educator and urban planner. For more than 25 years, Shirl has worked with children and adults on architectural, interpretive design and community development projects, with a specialty in consensus-based participation in the design process.
Sara Hinkley | California Program Manager
Sara Hinkley is the California Program Manager at CC+S. She leads the center’s work on education workforce housing and conducts research and policy analysis on equitable school facilities in California.
Astha Agarwal | PLUS Research Fellow
Astha Agarwal is a doctoral candidate in School Psychology at Berkeley School of Education, and she serves as a Graduate Student Researcher for the Transition-Age Youth Research and Evaluation Hub. Astha’s research is focused on pathways to higher education for youth who have been impacted by foster care and homelessness. Astha also experienced homelessness as a youth and she is a member of the Berkeley Hope Scholars community.
Lara Pesce Ares | PLUS Research Fellow
Lara Pesce Ares is a first-year Master of Public Policy (MPP) candidate at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, focusing urban policy and data analysis. Before graduate school, she spent five years working in tech policy in San Francisco, where she addressed issues of consumer rights, inclusion, and digital trust while contributing to projects on emerging technology ethics. Lara is currently collaborating with CA districts as part of the PLUS program to improve the implementation career and college-readiness pathways for students experiencing homelessness. Originally from Argentina and raised in San Francisco, Lara enjoys crafting and playing underwater hockey in her spare time.
Ruth Rodriguez | PLUS Research Fellow
Ruth Rodriguez was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles region (South Bay) and is a first-year Master of Public Policy Candidate at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. For her undergraduate studies, she attended UCLA (‘23) and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Public Affairs, a B.A in Education & Social Transformation, and a minor in Labor Studies. As an undergraduate student, she worked with various organizations, engaged in rigorous research that, in turn, produced theory for the field of Mixed-Status Families, and was a Public Policy & International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow at Princeton University, which cemented her love for public policy. Ruth’s commitment to public service is deeply rooted in her experiences as the daughter of immigrants from Guanajuato, México, and in what she experienced as a college advisor through AmeriCorps post-UCLA.
As a PLUS Fellow, she is working on uncovering best practices for implementing the Housing Questionnaire across the State. Alongside the PLUS team and the California Department of Education, Ruth is excited to work on ensuring that our homeless students obtain the quality education and resources they deserve.
Tianyue Lang | PLUS Research Fellow
Tianyue Lang is a first-year graduate student in the Master of City Planning program, with prospective dual concentrations in Housing, Community, and Economic Development (HCED) and Environmental Planning and Healthy Cities (EPHC). Through her volunteer teaching experience in ELD classrooms in the US and art classrooms in rural China during her undergraduate studies, she witnessed how educational inequities are deeply intertwined with disparities in housing, transportation, funding, and policy support across regions. Her work in community organizing in Philadelphia Chinatown further shows that strong collaboration between educational institutions and city officials is essential for creating a healthy school ecosystem. This insight drove her commitment to supporting and connecting schools and cities as agents of change to address these inequities.
Kobe Nguyen | PLUS Research Fellow
Kobe Nguyen (he/him) is a first-year Master’s student at UC Berkeley’s School of Education focusing on Policy, Politics, and Leadership. Prior to his graduate studies, Kobe majored in Molecular Cell Biology: Immunology and minored in Education at UC Berkeley. After his undergraduate career, Kobe worked in the non-profit education sector, focusing on intermediary educational organizations and how they can transform formal educational spaces. He also spends his weekends as an instructor at Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin, advocating for and advancing education prospects for those in the prison system. Currently, he is a Oakland Unified School District McKinney Vento Program Intern, disseminating resources for homeless students and working as a mentor for highly mobile students. Outside of school and work, Kobe enjoys basketball, vinyl records, and being a session musician.
Ruby Kosewicz-Strickland | Y-PLAN Coordinator
Ruby Kosewicz-Strickland is a second-year Master’s student at UC Berkeley in the Department of City and Regional Planning, with dual-concentrations in Housing, Community, and Economic Development and Environmental Planning and Healthy Cities. She began her work with CC+S as an Administrative Coordinator as an undergraduate student and has since worked as a PLUS Fellow and Research Coordinator since embarking on her current role as Y-PLAN Coordinator. Ruby also participated in Y-PLAN as a college mentor working closely with Oakland High School students, the City of Oakland, and the California Homeless Youth Project.
Ruby’s academic and professional interests lie at the intersection between housing policy and educational access, and she is currently authoring a Master’s Thesis on systems alignment between housing authorities and public school districts. She is particularly interested in youth agency in city environments and how schools allow opportunities to access urban life. Ruby is also a Graduate Student Instructor, Planning Students Association Board Member, and the President of her unit at the Berkeley Student Cooperative housing association.
Jonathan Lim-Breitbart | Technical Coordinator
Jonathan Lim-Breitbart is a designer and web developer, specializing in technologies for teaching and learning. His work has spanned a number of topics, including user interface and interaction design, front-end software development, educational research, technical and instructional support, interactive science content creation, and website design and production. He holds a Master of Information Management and Systems from UC Berkeley’s School of Information (2009) and a B.A. in Cognitive Science from Brown University (2003).
Contact: breity@berkeley.edu
Matt Gutierrez | Research Associate
Matt began his work at the Center for Cities + Schools as a Y-PLAN College Mentor in Prof. Deborah McKoy’s studio course. Drawing upon his experience as a teacher, Matt became the Y-PLAN Program Manager and coordinated K-12 educators, civic clients, and higher-ed partners as they planned and implemented Y-PLAN projects. He also oversaw the development of the Y-PLAN Digital Toolkit, which offers a suite of free, civic youth engagement resources. Matt now works on climate resilience initiatives in New York City but continues to support CC+S as a Research Associate.
Matt received a bachelors degree from Bowdoin College and a masters from UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning.
Contact: matthew_gutierrez@berkeley.edu
Amanda Barnett | Y-PLAN Senior Manager
Contact: amanda.barnett@berkeley.edu
Britney Tran | Administrative Coordinator
Britney Tran is currently a fourth year undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying Sustainable Environmental Design with a focus in City Planning and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Formerly a Y-PLAN Mentor, she enjoys teaching young planners about environmental resiliency and sustainability. As a design mentor for Student Makers, she works with middle schoolers and high schoolers from all disciplines and provides them with hands-on workshops, funding for projects, and a community where they can share their projects and collaborate with others. Britney has also formerly worked at Museum of Tomorrow, a Berkeley SkyDeck startup that educates students on the impacts of climate change and creates immersive exhibits to formulate behavioral changes.
Contact: britneyttran@berkeley.edu
Tira Okamoto | Communications Coordinator
Tira Okamoto serves as the Communications Coordinator for the UC Berkeley Center for Cities + Schools. Having first worked as a Y-PLAN client back in 2017 and then as a team member in 2018-2019, she is a long time supporter of the CC+S community of practice. Tira is presently an environmental planning master’s student at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, BC and holds a BA from UCLA. In her work, she strives to help communities adapt to our changing landscapes.
Contact: tira.okamoto@gmail.com