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René Nutter is the U.S. Food Security & Agriculture Client Account Lead. She has more than two decades of experience helping further food security and education in women and children. From studies with Yale, Harvard, and the Gates Foundation to a long and successful partnership with the USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), she has led large data collection studies and evaluations, provided technical assistance, and helped train the next generation of researchers.

Nichole Fiore is a Principal Associate with over 15 years of experience evaluating housing and homelessness programs across the country, developing deep expertise on homeless service systems, organizational capacity, political and community will, unsheltered homelessness, and permanent supportive housing. Recognizing the critical link between stable, safe housing and overall well-being, Fiore is proven leader bringing together diverse stakeholders who work across many jurisdictions and sectors to address the needs and improve the lives of people experiencing homelessness. She brings person-centric approaches to teams, from fostering inclusive decision-making in system design to ensuring projects are collecting evidence that informs homeless service systems implementation and rapid response to extreme weather situations. She also is a regular source for media outlets, often on the topic of homelessness in California.

Austin Gooden is a software architect at TSPi, a Division of Abt Global, with 6 years of experience delivering innovative software solutions in the public sector. With expertise spanning the entire Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Gooden has worked across a broad range of technologies, from Low-Code/No-Code platforms to legacy frameworks and multiple programming languages.  He has successfully delivered a variety of solutions for the U.S. Federal Government that enable systems to adapt seamlessly to congressional mandates, agency policies, and program definition, all while achieving the mission objectives of the IT initiative.

Diane Fraser started out working in art departments for a marketing product manufacturer in high school and a consulting firm in college. After college, she began a career in non-profits, where she developed and managed communications, public relations, fundraising, and events.

For 15 years, Lauren Dunton has been working in homelessness, housing, workforce, and education research at Abt. As an experienced Project Director, Dunton manages research and technical assistance projects for a range of federal agencies and foundation clients. She has expertise in qualitative data collection and analysis, including coordinating and conducting site visits and managing the collection of site-level administrative data.

Daniel Gubits conducts research in the areas of housing, homelessness, economic self-sufficiency and disability policy. Gubits’ expertise is in econometric modeling, data analysis, and random assignment program evaluation.Gubits serves as the director of analysis for the Family Options Study, conducted for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He is also leading the impact analysis work for the Social Security Administration’s Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) project. Both of these are random assignment impact evaluations.

Jeffrey Lubell — a leading authority on housing and community development — is the director of Housing and Community Initiatives at Abt Global. In that capacity, he provides policy, program and research expertise to assist policymakers in solving the nation’s pressing challenges in the areas of affordable housing, economic inclusion and asset-building, and community development.  

Lawrence Buron is an applied economist specializing in housing policy and the impact of government programs on labor market and quality-of-life outcomes of individuals and communities. An experienced leader of large-scale research and evaluation projects, he has led evaluations of the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV), HOPE VI, post-disaster housing options, and community redevelopment programs. He directs a random-assignment study of 36-month outcomes from 29 Health Profession Opportunity Grants and other innovative education and training programs to improve the career pathways and economic well-being of low-income, low-skilled workers.

Sarah Gibson is a project-management specialist with 23 years of experience in public policy research. She has more than 20 years of experience managing complex projects, implementing random assignment studies and researching and analyzing policy for clients such as the Social Security Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She is proficient in project management, including resource management, budgeting and quality control. She develops process improvement recommendations, identifies end-user system requirements, and designs and delivers training. She helps federal agencies implement regulations and track progress toward meeting goals.