Nancy Wu

Nancy Wu is an economist, writer, and podcast host based in New York City. She is passionate about her work as an interdisciplinary storyteller. As an economist, she approaches her research with an inclusive lens for communities that are underrepresented in datasets, which are predominantly communities of color. As a writer and podcaster, she seeks to make economics and politics accessible through personal storytelling and memoir.

Economist

Nancy currently leads the research agenda as the economist at StreetEasy, NYC’s online real estate marketplace, where she uses data science and econometrics to publish original research on the New York City housing market. Nancy’s analysis has been featured in publications including the New York Times, Vice, Reuters, Forbes, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Mansion Global, CNBC, and she has appeared on Freaknomics Radio, NPR’s Marketplace, Yahoo Finance, CBSN, CBS 2 and Fox5NY, among others. As a spokesperson for StreetEasy, Nancy has spoken on panels with Curbed, the NYU Furman Center, the Association for Housing and Neighborhood Development. Her current research focuses on NYC’s housing affordability crisis, the disparate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on rent burdened communities and communities of color, and economic lessons from the Great Recession.

Before joining StreetEasy, Nancy worked at NERA Economic Consulting’s finance practice, and prior to that, in economic policy at the White House and the Center for American Progress. Nancy has a master’s in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford, and bachelor’s from Dartmouth College, where she was a triple major in Economics, Government, and Women’s and Gender Studies. 

Storyteller

Nancy is the host of Progressive Opinions of Color (POC), a podcast that seeks to create space for people of color in conversations about economics and politics.

She is currently writing a memoir on the intersections of immigration, mental health, and Asian American identity, as well as an apocalyptic novel on Big Tech. She has attended the Tin House Winter Workshop for Nonfiction and frequently participates in Catapult’s nonfiction workshops.

Outside of storytelling, Nancy enjoys reading and running, and has run marathons in NYC and San Diego, and several half marathons across the world.

---