Applications Open: Housing Venture Lab Graduate Student Fellows
Alex Weinberg, 2024 Graduate Student FellowWorking at Terner Labs means being in conversation with people at the top of their field, on the cutting edge of addressing challenges in the housing crisis.
Help uncover and elevate the most promising early-stage models to advance housing affordability in the U.S.!
Terner Labs’ Housing Venture Lab seeks graduate student fellows to aid in recruiting and selecting the 2025 Housing Lab cohort. This cohort of for-profit and non-profit ventures are working towards solutions to advance housing affordability, equity, and sustainability.
Terner Labs is also hiring graduate student fellows for the Builders Venture Lab, which more broadly supports innovators advancing affordability, equity and sustainability in housing. Find details about that role here.
About the Housing Venture Lab
The Housing Venture Lab identifies and accelerates creative models to lower housing costs with a focus on addressing systemic racial and economic inequity. Members of the cohort receive a $75,000 grant, 6 months of advising to navigate the policy environment, and access to a national network of policymakers, developers, and investors. It is the only accelerator program in the United States dedicated to advancing early-stage innovations to promote housing affordability.
The Housing Venture Lab started in 2019 and recently completed its fifth annual cohort program, (you can read more about their pivotal work here.) The twenty-two alumni from the first four cohorts (2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023) have gone on to improve housing and wealth outcomes for 163,000 people, raise nearly $500 million to expand their work, and secure significant partnerships with state and federal governments.
Details
We expect each fellow to become an expert in one or more verticals within housing innovation, such as real estate development, construction and design, home finance, sustainability, or technology. Fellows will research the national landscape, conduct first-round evaluations, contact companies, and lead company interviews within their vertical. Verticals will be assigned based on professional background and interest. Fellows may also have the opportunity to develop public-facing blogs and briefs on topic areas related to housing innovation, affordability, and equity.
Fellows must commit an average of 7-10 hours per week from mid-January until the end of May, 2025. Actual workload will vary with some lighter and some heavier weeks based on the Housing Venture Lab application cycle. For interested fellows, there may be an opportunity to continue full or part-time work during the summer. It is desired (but not mandatory) that applicants have some prior exposure to innovative approaches to housing finance, development, or technology and/or experience in evaluating for-profit or nonprofit start-up models in other industries. Strong written and oral communication is required. Fellows will be paid $36/hour.
How to Apply
Please submit your resume and a brief summary of why you are interested here by Sunday, November 3. Past fellows have included students from the College of Environmental Design, Haas School of Business, and Goldman School for Public Policy. We are excited about and greatly encourage applicants from other graduate programs as well.
About Terner Labs
Terner Labs scales critical housing innovations at the intersection of equity, affordability, and sustainability. As a sister organization of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, we transform innovative research and policy expertise into actionable tools, programs, and partnerships with the public and private sectors. We currently operate three initiatives: the Housing Venture Lab, Builders Lab, and Data Solutions Lab.
