Brighter Prospects for Chicago’s Youth:
Strengthening Summer Jobs and Beyond

Charles L. Evans has served as president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago since September 2007. In that capacity, he serves on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policymaking body. Before becoming president in September of 2007, Evans served as director of research and senior vice president, supervising the Bank’s research on monetary policy, banking, financial markets, and regional economic conditions.

His personal research has focused on measuring the effects of monetary policy on U.S. economic activity, inflation, and financial market prices and has been published in peer-reviewed journals.

Evans is active in the civic community. He is a trustee at Rush University Medical Center, a director of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a governing board member of Econ Illinois, a member of the Economic Club of Chicago board of directors, and a member of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and Civic Consulting Alliance board. Evans has taught at the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and the University of South Carolina. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a doctorate in economics from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Michael V. Berry is a policy advisor in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's community development and policy studies division and the managing editor of the Chicago Fed's community and economic development publication, ProfitWise News and Views. Berry also serves as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Board's Community Advisory Council, and prepares the council's published, semiannual meeting record. Prior to joining the Chicago Fed, Berry worked in the market research group at The RESCORP Companies, a real estate development and consulting organization created by a consortium of over 50 financial institutions that specialized in community revitalization, and in the investment research group of Balcor, a (former) subsidiary of American Express.

Berry holds a BA degree in political science from Susquehanna University and an MBA degree with finance concentration from DePaul University.

Iona Calhoun-Battiste is the director of opportunity youth and employment strategies at Thrive Chicago. She works with key partners to support Thrive’s opportunity youth strategies aimed at reducing the number of Chicago youth not in school or working. Calhoun-Battiste has more than 20 years of experience in community development and organization, strategic planning, and youth programming. Previously, she worked at United Way Metro Chicago as a community engagement manager and a violence prevention director for youth in the Bronzeville community in collaboration with then State Senator Kwame Raoul. She was also a director for CPS Safe Schools Initiatives for the South Shore community and a supervisor for 12 community schools in the Roseland area through Metro Family Services. In addition, she provided individual and family therapy through Ada S. McKinley Community Services. Calhoun-Battiste has an MA in developmental psychopathology from Columbia University and a BA in psychology from Howard University.

Michael Chiappetta is the director of Chicago market development at Accenture. In this role, his focus is on expanding the organization’s footprint within the Chicago market from a business development, civic, and community point of view. The biggest highlight of the past few years is establishing the Accenture Apprentice program, which connects students from community colleges and local tech-focused nonprofits to careers at Accenture, helping to more equally distribute opportunities to a greater number of people within our communities. What started as a pilot in 2016 with five apprentices from city colleges has grown into 160 apprentices being brought into Accenture’s Chicago business. The program has scaled to more than 1,000 apprentice hires in 35 markets within Accenture’s North American business to date.

Sara Heller is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan. She studies interventions to reduce crime and improve other life outcomes among disadvantaged youth. She uses large-scale experiments to isolate the causal effects of a variety of programs, including cognitive behavioral therapy-based interventions and summer jobs.

Heller holds a PhD in public policy from the University of Chicago, an MPP from Georgetown University, and a BA in psychology from Harvard University.

Sybil Madison serves as deputy mayor for education and human services in the Office of the Mayor, City of Chicago. As a clinical and community psychologist, Madison has focused her career on reimagining urban education so that all children achieve equitable educational outcomes. Her work has addressed system-level change by facilitating the learning and collaboration of adults—including school district administrators, principals, teachers, and social workers, as well as government and civic leaders and community-based educators. Madison has taught K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students in Chicago and across numerous institutions. A lifelong learner, she recently completed studies as a Civic Leadership Academy Fellow at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Madison earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her doctorate in clinical psychology, with a focus on community psychology, from the University of California at Berkeley.