Steven Zecher is the project director for regional development and finance research at the Milken Institute Israel Center. He focuses on financing strategies with an emphasis on public-private-philanthropic structures. Zecher has extensive experience in urban and regional development policy, project finance strategies, small-business and real estate lending, feasibility studies, fiscal impact analysis, market studies and business valuations, and economic development. Since moving to Israel in 2003, Zecher has been developing business expansion projects, joint business ventures between Arabs and Israelis in Jerusalem, joint planning and infrastructure and environmental projects among communities of Arab and Jewish Israelis, and regional industrial policy research. Zecher holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Brandeis University and a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Pittsburgh.