Hanna Szemző is a Sociologist, who also holds a PhD from History from the Central European University. She has been working at the Metropolitan Research Institute, a Budapest-based think tank for almost two decades, where she is one of the managing directors. She has extensive experience in research and consultancy in the fields of urban development, social inclusion, demography, welfare, and governance analysis. She has participated in various 5th, 6th and 7th Framework programs and the H2020 programs of the European Union, prepared strategic development concepts for local governments, and has provided consultancy for Habitat for Humanity International in Armenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was one of the lead researchers and coordinators of the EU financed HomeLab project between 2016-2019, which connected employment and housing provision in five pilot sites in the Visegrad four countries. She was also a visiting fellow at the Salzburg Global Seminar in the fall of 2018, participating at the Building Healthy, Equitable Communities: The Role of Inclusive Urban Development and Investment program. Currently she is the coordinator of OpenHeritage, an H2020 European research and innovation action, focusing on finding sustainable management models for bottom-up initiated adaptive heritage reuse practices in marginalized areas.