Shiva Kooragayala is a research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute. His research interests include community and economic development, education policy, and the spatial dimensions of inequality and opportunity.

Before the Urban Institute, Kooragayala interned at the Community Development Studies and Education Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Center for Community Partnerships at Emory University, and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. As an undergraduate, he conducted research on the relationship between suburban poverty and the Housing Choice Voucher Program in metropolitan Atlanta. While in graduate school, he investigated the spatial dimensions of working poverty in Philadelphia.

Kooragayala graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology from Emory University and received his masters in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania.