United States

George McCarthy

Director New York

George ("Mac") McCarthy directs the foundation's Metropolitan Opportunity work. His team focuses on providing low-income people in the United States better access to jobs and other opportunities by supporting regional planning efforts, transportation investments and housing development policies that alleviate poverty and reduce its concentration within metropolitan areas.

Before becoming director in 2008, Mac administered a Ford Foundation program that focused on using homeownership to build assets for low-income families and their communities. That work centered on improving housing and housing finance markets to increase the chances that low-income homeowners could succeed in building wealth.

Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2000, he was a senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked as professor of economics at Bard College; resident scholar at the Jerome Levy Economics Institute; visiting scholar and member of the High Table at King's College of Cambridge University; visiting scholar at the University of Naples, Italy; and research associate at the Centre for Independent Social Research in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mac earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master's degree in economics from Duke University and a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Montana.