Susan M. Wachter is the Albert Sussman Professor of Real Estate, and Professor of Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Director for the Wharton GeoSpatial Initiative and Lab, and the co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research. She also co-directs the Spatial Integration Laboratory for Urban Systems at the University of Pennsylvania. As an economist, she is frequently sought for comment on real estate market trends in well known media outlets
Wachter was appointed the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (1998-2001). She currently serves on the Financial Research Advisory Committee for the Office of Financial Research, a sub-department of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2016). Wachter was Celia Moh Visiting Professor at Singapore Management University (2004). She serves on the Board of Editors for various publications including the Journal of Housing Economics, the Housing Policy Debate, the Journal of Real Estate and Finance, and the Journal of Real Estate Research. Wachter is the co-editor, with Eugenie L. Birch, of the Social Science Research Network Urban Research eJournal.