Manoel Pereira Neto

Manoel Pereira Neto is a Ph.D. Student in City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, focusing on the intersection of housing, finance, real estate, and government. His current research delves into the growing presence of institutional landlords and their impacts on neighborhood dynamics and households’ access to affordable, secure, and stable housing. In his work, Manoel aims to bridge local planning processes with broader financial logics, offering fresh perspectives on how contemporary capitalism is spatially organized and manifested in cities.

Before joining Cornell for his doctoral studies, Manoel served as Head of Partnerships and Development at The Class Foundation, a Dutch organization dedicated to addressing Europe’s student housing crisis. He also served as Associate Director at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, where he developed research collaborations on modern urban challenges related to housing, mobility, public security, and climate change in Brazilian cities. Recently, he has held consulting and research appointments with the Climate City Finance and Leadership Alliance (CCFLA), the Bloomberg Center for Cities, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Chile’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and the Mega-City Project.

Manoel holds a bachelor’s degree in Administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, a master’s in Urbanization and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a master’s in Urban Planning from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD).