Dr. Abraham Unger is the Director and Associate Professor of Urban Programs in the Department of Government and Politics at Wagner College. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Marron Institute, and a Visiting Research Scholar in the Political Science Department at Fordham University. Dr. Unger is also working with the McGinley Chair of Religion and Society at Fordham on issues of faith and the public square in the U.S. He serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Carey Institute of Government Reform. Dr. Unger consults on urban economic development projects. He served as Project Manager of the East Shore Local Development Corporation, where he implemented a major HUD grant in a disadvantaged New York City community strongly impacted by Hurricane Sandy. He has been a member of the Staten Island Borough President’s Strategic Policy Advisory Committee. Dr. Unger is the author of numerous papers and three peer reviewed books, including the volumes Business Improvement Districts in the United States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), A Jewish Public Theology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) and The Death and Life of the American Middle Class (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Dr. Unger has also contributed to popular publications, including the New York Jewish Week and Huffington Post. In 2019 he became a contributor to the Washington, D.C. news website The Hill. Dr. Unger’s primary research field is public policy, with an emphasis on urban economic development and social policy.  While at Marron, Abe will assist our project with Build Baton Rouge and LabGov.  He will work primarily on the structure and funding of a proposed neighborhood improvement district.