Media Name: brash-rachel.jpg
Rachel Brash
Former employee
Former employee

Rachel Brash was a research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. She is an experienced program evaluator, policy researcher, and program practitioner, specializing in financial capability, community and economic development, and community safety. She is currently working on a randomized control trial study of two financial coaching programs for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with a related implementation evaluation funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Brash was also part of the study team validating quality-of-life indicators for the National Endowment for the Arts and a four-year evaluation of the US Treasury Department’s New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) program, involving administrative data analysis, surveys, and in-depth telephone interviews. The goal of the study was to define and document a broad array of economic development outcomes associated with the NMTC program.

Before joining Urban, Brash was director of community programming for the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, where she administered a state-funded initiative to reduce crime in six distressed neighborhoods through community-based probation, nuisance abatement, and community mobilization. She was winner of the Abell Foundation Award in Urban Policy for “Youth Violence Prevention and Reduction: Strategies for a Safer Baltimore” in 2004.

Brash earned her BA in English from Yale University and an MPP from Johns Hopkins University.

Research Areas
Wealth and financial well-being
Neighborhoods, cities, and metros
Race and equity