Announcing the 2025 Meyer Dissertation Fellows

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Three Harvard PhD candidates have been named 2025 John R. Meyer Dissertation Fellows by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. 

José Carlos Fernández Salas is a PhD candidate in Urban History whose research examines the housing and land tenure practices developed by Indigenous migrants, Afro-Peruvians, and Japanese communities in Peru from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, and how they might offer lessons for innovative housing policies across the Global South. 

Matthew Jacob is a PhD candidate in Public Policy whose work uses data from post-2008 foreclosure assistance programs to quantify the long-term economic consequences of foreclosure across generations and develop evidence-based policy recommendations to support vulnerable households facing housing instability. 

Michelle Xiyue Li is a PhD candidate in Public Policy whose research examines how converting abandoned rail corridors into multi-use trails influences housing values, residential development, and neighborhood demographics. 

About the Meyer Fellowship 

Meyer Fellows receive a stipend from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and access to the Center’s resources and interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners. Fellows are expected to produce a working paper and to present their work in a Housing Research Seminar at the Center. 

The fellowship honors the memory of the late John R. Meyer, who chaired the Center's Faculty Committee from 1997 to 2003 and served as its Interim Director from 1996 to 1998. One of the leading urban economists of his generation, Meyer was the James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Economic Growth at the Harvard Kennedy School. He also served as president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, as a professor at Harvard Business School, and as a professor of economics at both Harvard and Yale. 

Media Contact: Kerry Donahue, (617) 495-7640, [email protected]