About CC+S
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.
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.
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
Austin Long | Graduate Student Researcher
Austin is currently a second year graduate student at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and is excited to support the work of the Center for Cities and Schools as a graduate student researcher for Y-PLAN. Prior to joining C+CS, he was a project manager for an education consulting firm and worked with public school districts, nonprofits, and philanthropies on strategy and data analytics. Austin is passionate about work that uplifts young people and communities to enable social change.
Contact: austin.long@berkeley.edu
Jonathan Lim-Breitbart | Technical Coordinator
Contact: breity@berkeley.edu