Drs. Marja Hoek-Smit is the Director of the International Housing Finance Program of the Wharton School Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center, and an Adjunct Professor in the Wharton Real Estate Department and Department of City and Regional Planning of the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on housing and housing finance policy development, particularly for developing and emerging economies, housing demand and affordability analysis, the development of monitoring and evaluation systems for urban housing programs, and the development of executive education program in housing finance, housing market development, and urban development.

She has consulted with clients including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, USAID, the United Nations, the Inter–American Development Bank, and directly for several governments and private financial institutions. Recent consulting activities include the analysis and/or design of alternative housing finance and subsidy programs for the governments of Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, and Suriname, the development of a comprehensive housing strategy and subsidy system for the Government of Indonesia, urban housing market studies in Thailand, South Africa, Botswana and Tanzania, the development of participatory approaches for urban and housing development for the governments of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and South Africa. She has also prepared national strategies for housing finance training for the governments of Pakistan and India.

Drs. Hoek-Smit is on the editorial board of Housing Finance International and a member of the Working Group on Housing Research of the World Bank. She has lectured internationally at leading universities and has been a keynote speaker at major national and international professional meetings.

She completed her doctoraal degree at the University of Amsterdam in 1971. Prior to teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, she taught at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.