Emily Jacobson is a Research Associate at the Possibility Lab and leads research on housing and land use policy for the Lab’s Abundance Agenda project. Previously, she was the inaugural Research Fellow at the California YIMBY Education Fund, where she studied land use entitlement in Los Angeles and policies to advance housing affordability across California.

Emily is passionate about using data to develop equitable public policies and strengthen governance – an interest she cultivated while working on evaluations of international development projects as a research analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago. Emily holds a Master of Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from Rice University. While in graduate school, she supported comparative housing policy research as an intern at SPUR and was co-Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Public Policy Journal.

Outside of work, Emily enjoys watching classic movies, spending too much time and money at Berkeley Bowl, and always coming in second place at trivia. A proud Texas native, she has chosen to prioritize having access to public transit and good weather over BBQ and breakfast tacos (for now).