David Geltner Catalyst Fund
The MIT Center for Real Estate is pleased to announce the establishment of the David Geltner Catalyst Fund. We are inviting our alumni, friends, and partners to join us in celebrating his remarkable impact at MIT and around the world.
This new endowed fund will honor the legacy of Professor Emeritus David Geltner, who has distinguished himself as a leading scholar, a thoughtful teacher, a caring mentor, and a pathbreaking thinker in commercial property and real estate finance. This fund will be dedicated to supporting CRE lecturers to advance research and teaching in these fields and to providing fellowships for MSRED graduate students.
This new fund has been made possible thanks to a generous gift of $250,000 from Mr. Robert M. White Jr.
Given all that David has done for the Center, we are now launching a fundraising challenge to match Mr. White’s gift. We are looking to the CRE community, and especially our alumni, to raise another $250,000 in matching gifts toward this impactful fund. We hope you will consider joining us by making a gift.
Please note: During the MIT 24-Hour Challenge (March 14, 2024), MIT will be featuring the David Geltner Catalyst Fund. As you may know, the 24-Hour Challenge is a once-a-year opportunity for alumni, parents, students, and friends to rally in support of our MIT community. We hope you will use this opportunity to spread the word about this fund. Nonetheless, gifts at any time will count toward the matching challenge.
About David
Professor Emeritus of Real Estate Finance
MIT Center for Real Estate
Professor Emeritus David Geltner has been at MIT since 2002 where he has held the George Macomber Chair and currently is Professor Emeritus of Real Estate Finance in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning.
Geltner served as Academic Director of the MIT Center for Real Estate during 2003-08 and from 2008-14 as faculty chair of MIT’s Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) program. He is the lead author of the most widely-cited real estate investments textbook, “Commercial Real Estate Analysis & Investments”, now in its third edition.
Recipient of the U.S. Pension Real Estate Association’s prestigious Graaskamp Award in 2011 for excellence and influence in real estate investment research, Geltner has served as Academic Advisor to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), and as Director of MIT’s Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory which has developed pioneering commercial property price and investment performance indices based on transactions prices (including the Moody’s/RCA CPPI, the NCREIF-based TBI, and the FTSE-NAREIT PureProperty® Indices). Geltner served from 1999-2012 as the External Academic Member of the Real Estate Investment Committee of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (a pension plan sponsor with over $5 billion of directly managed real estate holdings).
Prior to MIT, Geltner was the REEAC Professor of Real Estate in the Finance Department of the College of Business Administration at the University of Cincinnati. He has been teaching graduate level real estate investments and finance since 1989. Geltner received his PhD in 1989 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Civil Engineering Department in the field of infrastructure finance & economics. He also has degrees in urban studies from Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Michigan. A 2006 study published in Real Estate Economics found Geltner to be the most influential academic real estate writer, based on number of citations during 2000-2004 in top academic real estate journals.
