Bloomberg Innovation Delivery Fellowship

Emily Lieb is from Portland, Oregon, where since 2008 she has been a project manager in Portland State University's office of Planning, Sustainability, and Real Estate. Prior to that, she served in three different City of Portland bureaus – Parks & Recreation, Planning & Sustainability, and Transportation – working on the Portland Plan (the city's 25-year comprehensive plan) and the Portland Streetcar System Plan.

Emily holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University and a BA from Denison University. While a graduate student, she worked with a small team on Roadway Not Improved, a project that explored community-based approaches and policy solutions for unimproved streets in Portland. The project was honored with the 2010-11 American Planning Association student award for the state of Oregon.

Emily is passionate about the need for city governments to become more accessible, transparent and data-driven in their decision-making processes, and she’s excited to join Atlanta’s Innovation Team in bringing stakeholders together to tackle homelessness and introduce 311 and other initiatives to improve city services.

Daniel is fascinated by cities and what makes them tick. He has worked in several capacities for Louisville Metro government. Most recently, Daniel worked in the Economic Development Department, where he was a member of the Commercial and Industrial Redevelopment Division. His projects included the implementation of an area-wide revitalization plan for a 1,400-acre region of West Louisville, and the administration of an EPA community-wide Brownfields grant.

Daniel earned a BS in Economics from Centre College and a Master of Community Planning from the University of Cincinnati, where he received the American Institute of Certified Planners Award for high performance throughout his graduate studies. Attracted to the multidisciplinary nature of the planning field, Daniel has explored various issues in economic development, environmental planning and urban design. Through the completion of an in-depth master’s thesis, Daniel also has a strong understanding of the role of art, culture and authenticity on the transformation of urban neighborhoods in the 21st century city.

Abby is a dedicated and passionate public service professional with more than eight years of experience in program design and management, monitoring and evaluation, communications, and resource mobilization. Abby most recently worked in Port-au-Prince, Haiti with Habitat for Humanity as part of the emergency earthquake response and early recovery program providing shelter, water and sanitation, capacity building and basic services to over 25,000 disaster-affected families in Haiti. In her role as design, planning, monitoring and evaluation specialist, Abby led the Community Engagement team in designing participatory and community-based approaches to shelter programs; conducted field site visits to monitor progress against targeted outputs; and designed data collection, monitoring and reporting tools.

Prior to that, she worked with Americans for UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and HealthRight International in New York on public education, fundraising and advocacy projects. Abby also conducted evaluation research with the Inter-American Development Bank on water and sanitation projects in Cuenca, Ecuador. She holds a Master of Public Administration from New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and carried out her undergraduate studies in Mass Media and Sociology at Boston University.

Whitney Soenksen is a committed public service professional with a specific focus on partner relations, communications, program design and management, and youth development. Most recently, Soenksen acted as communications director for a national nonprofit, the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation.

Soenksen has worked at both the local and national level building alliances, programs and communications systems and managing new initiatives. She worked for over two years with AmeriCorps Alums (a business unit of Points of Light Institute) as external relations manager.  During her time with AmeriCorps Alums, Soenksen established chapters of national service alumni in over 50 locations, directed all communications and press, launched all social media outreach, and managed all national and local partner relations.

Originally from Iowa, Soenksen (pronounced 'Sank-sen') worked as a broadcast journalist and for the Iowa Citizen Action Network. Soenksen has served as an AmeriCorps member with the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship at Boston Cares and also completed her MS in Leadership and Nonprofit Management at Northeastern University. She has led trips to New Orleans as a disaster relief volunteer and acted as a mentor to numerous young people and later worked as the membership and communications coordinator for MassCOSH, a regional nonprofit focused on worker safety and health.

Prior to joining the Bloomberg Innovation Delivery team, Soenksen led the re-launch of the Metro DC Chapter of AmeriCorps Alums. She was also a founding member and leader of the Boston Chapter of AmeriCorps Alums and graduated in 2003 from the University of Iowa with degrees in American Studies and Journalism.

Kate Yager most recently served as associate consultant of the Consulting and Technical Assistance unit at Seedco, a national workforce development nonprofit organization in New York City. Kate provided project management in the areas of workforce and economic development, partnership network development, and green jobs training programs.

Previously, Kate served as project manager with the New York City Workforce Investment Board, where she served as the Board’s liaison for the City’s green workforce development initiatives, analyzed local, state and federal workforce policy, and managed stakeholder relationships to support competitive grant opportunities. Prior to joining the workforce arena in New York City, Kate served as director of economic research for the Tennessee Technology Development Corporation in Nashville, TN, a state-funded nonprofit organization that leads the technology-based economic development agenda for the State of Tennessee. Additionally, she served as economic research analyst for the State of Tennessee with the Technology Development Division of the Department of Economic and Community Development. Kate received her Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Binghamton University.