Zaire Dinzey-Flores

Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores was appointed NYCHA Board Member on December 23, 2015, by Mayor Bill de Blasio. A scholar of housing policy and design, urban planning, and community inequality, Dr. Dinzey-Flores is currently an Associate Professor of Sociology and Latino & Hispanic Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. She has lectured and written extensively, including publishing an award winning book titled Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City (University of Pennsylvania Press: 2013), looking at residential neighborhoods and public housing in Puerto Rico, the second largest housing authority in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Prior to her academic appointment, Dr. Dinzey-Flores was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow of Race, Crime, and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Before her academic career, Dr. Dinzey-Flores worked in a program considering alternatives to detention for immigrants in deportation proceedings and for the Urban Justice Center’s Homelessness Prevention Project. Dr. Dinzey-Flores received a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Sociology and a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, a M.A. in Sociology from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard University.