Jacob Wascalus

Jacob seeks to improve community vitality by promoting the use of data and community indicators to better understand trends in different quality-of-life measures. At Wilder, he generates and curates content for the Minnesota Compass website and manages a portfolio of related research projects. He brings experience in research, geospatial analysis, writing, and outreach from previous positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, among others.

He holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in English from James Madison University in Virginia.

Outside of work, he enjoys bicycling around the Twin Cities and getting lost in the woods as he forages for mushrooms. In his opinion, a perfect day would somehow combine the two.