UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Brent Ambrose, professor of real estate in the Smeal College of Business, has been awarded the 2025 President’s Award for Excellence in Academic Integration.
The award is given to a full-time faculty member who has exhibited extraordinary achievement in the integration of teaching, research or creative accomplishment and service.
Ambrose is the Jason and Julie Borrelli Faculty Chair in Real Estate and the director of the Borrelli Institute for Real Estate Studies. Nominators said he’s an expert in real estate finance, corporate finance and fixed income security analysis, and uses his expertise to guide public policy and help those impacted by mortgage defaults and foreclosures.
He advises the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Congressional Budget Office on various critical issues, including Federal Housing Administration mortgage default and foreclosure impacts, the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Government Sponsored Enterprises’ affordable housing goals. He is a past President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.
One notable research effort for HUD, researchers said, produced innovative methods for detecting discrimination in the housing markets. It was rooted in Ambrose’s research on spotting racial bias in property appraisals, which he conducted with three former doctoral students.
“By combining his expertise and leadership, Ambrose not only advanced critical knowledge in the public sector but also provided his students with the opportunity to engage in impactful, policy-relevant research,” a former student said. “This collaboration underscores Brent’s commitment to bridging academic research with real-world applications while fostering the development of the next generation of scholars.”
As head of the doctoral program, nominators said, Ambrose has transformed the real estate option within the doctoral program into one of the most respected in the country. He has chaired 16 dissertation committees, with his students occupying faculty positions at leading universities across the nation.
Ambrose oversees the Real Estate Boot Camp, which connects students with top leaders in the industry through panel discussions, mock interviews and property site visits. He also oversees the Smeal REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) Stock Pitch Competition, where undergraduate students get to showcase their ideas and understanding of real estate in a stock pitch format. He also oversees the Jaffe Memorial lectureship, which is a college-level platform for leading real estate professionals to discuss the issues facing the field, and the Sokolov Family seminar series in real estate, which bring leading scholars in real estate and urban economics to Penn State.
Ambrose leads the Borrelli Institute for Real Estate Studies (BIRES), a privately-sponsored research institution whose advisory board is made up of donors to the Institute. BIRES fosters discussion and research between academicians and business professionals in real estate and serves as a focal point for real estate education at Penn State, nominators said.
“Ambrose’s extraordinary achievements in teaching, research, service, and outreach make him a highly deserving candidate for this award,” a nominator said. “His contributions have significantly advanced the field of real estate and have had a profound impact on the academic community, the profession and the public.”