Four NAHRO National Awards
National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials
October 2026
One Award of Excellence and three Awards of Merit, accepted on behalf of NJ DCA, for NJHOMES, the NJ Eviction Guide and the HERF AI model
About Gavin Rozzi
Government technology executive and data scientist in New Jersey state government
Certified Public Manager (CPM) · 2025 Governor's Team of Excellence Award · Creator of zipcodeR and founder of OPRAmachine
What Gavin Rozzi does
Gavin Rozzi runs the data and software team inside a New Jersey state housing agency. The team he hired through the civil service builds the tools residents and local officials use: an eviction self-help guide, a planning tool and vacant-land map that every municipality can use for its affordable-housing obligations, and the data pipeline behind the state's effort to end veteran homelessness. The work is done in house, on public records the State already holds, so that it keeps running after any one project ends.
Before government he was a data scientist in academia and founded a statewide public-records platform that he no longer operates. He also maintains open-source R packages used by researchers in other states. The chronology below lists each role with its dates.
Biography
Gavin Rozzi is the founding Director of the DHCR Data Center at New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs. He chose to hire and train a civil-service team instead of buying another vendor system. Today, he leads a team he recruited and developed through the civil service system, developers and analysts who bring modern engineering practices to state government. Together, they've delivered platforms like the NJ Eviction Guide, housing compliance tools serving 564 municipalities, NJHOMES Atlas, a statewide map of municipally owned vacant land, and the veteran homelessness tracking systems that helped the state reach Functional Zero in July 2026. In October 2026 he accepted four NAHRO national awards on behalf of the Department for NJHOMES, the NJ Eviction Guide and the HERF AI model.
His work combines data science, software engineering and a working knowledge of how policy gets written and carried out. That mix is what lets him take a complex government mandate and turn it into a system residents can use.
His career began in academia, where he was the founding Data Scientist at the Rutgers Urban and Civic Informatics Lab, a research center at the Bloustein School. He built the lab's technical infrastructure and its analytical practice, connecting computational methods to urban policy research. As a Research Affiliate at the New Jersey State Policy Lab, he worked on a spatial analysis of the opioid crisis that used spatial analysis and statistical modeling to inform state policy.
Before joining government, he founded OPRAmachine, New Jersey's first statewide freedom of information platform, which processed over 75,000 public records requests and released 250GB of government data before he stepped down in 2024. He has also published open-source tools used by researchers nationwide, including zipcodeR, an R package on CRAN with 53+ peer-reviewed citations (as of March 2026). Its citations include papers in Nature Communications, Cancer Discovery, MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the American Heart Association and JAMIA Open. In a personal civic capacity, he also is an elected member of the Burlington County Democratic Committee for Florence Township (Ward 3, District 2).
He holds an M.S. in Data Science & Strategic Analytics and a B.A. in Political Science from Stockton University, where he graduated with a 4.0 and 3.9 GPA respectively. He earned the Certified Public Manager (CPM) credential in August 2026. New Jersey's program is administered by the Civil Service Commission and delivered by the Rutgers University School of Public Affairs and Administration. His capstone, Operation Right Answer, consolidated thirteen siloed phone queues in the State's largest housing division into one purpose-built contact center with a service scorecard for measuring the resident experience. He was part of the A4-S50 implementation team that received the 2025 Governor's Team of Excellence Award, and he took first place in the 3D category of the 2022 NJ DEP GIS Mapmaking Contest with a 3D population density map of New Jersey.
Leadership Philosophy: The best government technology comes from understanding institutional constraints and working within them. Change tends to arrive incrementally, once a project has earned enough trust to be given the next one, and the capacity it leaves behind matters more than the launch. That means translating policy intent into systems that work, building coalitions across organizational lines, and respecting how government moves. The goal is capacity that keeps working after the project ends.
Impact at a Glance
CPM Certified Public Manager, August 2026
Press and appearances
Recognition & Credentials
Certified Public Manager (CPM)
New Jersey Civil Service Commission, delivered by Rutgers SPAA
August 2026
Capstone: Operation Right Answer, a contact center and service scorecard for NJ housing programs
Governor's Team of Excellence Award
New Jersey Civil Service Commission
2025
Team award: A4-S50 affordable housing implementation team
First Place, NJ DEP GIS Mapmaking Contest
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
2022
3D category, 34th annual contest; Honorable Mention, Best Cartographic Design
Selected: Eviction Data Response Network
New America
2026
New Jersey was one of 11 states selected; member of the New Jersey state team
Professional Moments
Career chronology
Dates come from the same record that feeds the rest of this site. Last reviewed October 2026.
- October 2026 Accepted four NAHRO national awards on behalf of NJ DCA National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials For NJHOMES, the NJ Eviction Guide and the HERF AI model.
- September 2026 Launched a statewide map of municipally owned vacant land NJHOMES Atlas Built into NJHOMES Choice so CDBG recipients can publish the vacant land inventory the federal 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act requires. Announced by DCA on October 2, 2026.
- August 2026 Certified Public Manager (CPM) NJ Civil Service Commission, delivered by Rutgers SPAA Capstone: Operation Right Answer, the DHCR contact-center and service-scorecard program.
- July 2026 New Jersey reaches Functional Zero for veteran homelessness Bringing Veterans Home Covered nationally by Route Fifty in August 2026.
- June 2026 to 2028 New Jersey state team member New America, Eviction Data Response Network New Jersey was one of 11 states selected for the network.
- May 2025 Governor's Team of Excellence Award (A4-S50 implementation team) New Jersey Civil Service Commission For A4-S50 affordable housing implementation, the work behind the NJHOMES Choice Tool. Covered by Shore News Network.
- 2024 to present Director, Data Center Administration New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Founding director of the DHCR Data Center. Built the in-house civic technology team that delivered the NJ Eviction Guide, Bringing Veterans Home, the NJHOMES planning tools and NJHOMES Atlas.
- 2023 to August 2026 Member, Board of Directors New Jersey Foundation for Open Government
- August 2022 First Place, 3D category, 34th annual NJ DEP GIS Mapmaking Contest New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Winning entry: a 3D population density map of New Jersey.
- 2022 to 2024 Principal Consultant and Founder 39 North Labs, LLC Data strategy, operational improvement and digital service delivery for government and nonprofit clients.
- 2022 Lecturer, Master of Public Informatics Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School Designed and taught the graduate data visualization course.
- March 2020 zipcodeR published CRAN
- 2020 M.S., Data Science and Strategic Analytics Stockton University
- 2020 to 2022 Founding Data Scientist Rutgers Urban and Civic Informatics Lab
- 2020 to 2022 Research Affiliate Rutgers Bloustein School (New Jersey State Policy Lab) Spatial risk modeling of opioid overdose vulnerability, presented at Bloustein Research Day 2022.
- 2019 to 2020 Graduate Research Assistant William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, Stockton University Co-authored the Hughes Center study of New Jersey's underground construction economy.
- 2018 B.A., Political Science Stockton University
- 2017 to 2024 Founder OPRAmachine Built and ran New Jersey's first statewide public records request platform, 2017 to 2024. No longer operates it.
About Gavin Rozzi: FAQ
What does Gavin Rozzi do?
Gavin Rozzi leads service-delivery modernization in New Jersey state government. The work means replacing legacy processes with modern applications, building in-house engineering capacity instead of relying on vendors, and turning legislative mandates into systems residents can use. His expertise covers full-stack web development, data science, GIS mapping and policy implementation.
Press Resources
Professional headshot and bio available for media use
Professional Biography
Gavin Rozzi is a government technology executive and data scientist in New Jersey. As the founding Director of the DHCR Data Center at New Jersey's Department of Community Affairs, he leads an in-house civic technology team that builds modern web applications and data infrastructure for affordable housing and community development programs.
He has worked on the policy side and written the code, so his team can take a statute and build the service it calls for. The tools they have built cover all 564 New Jersey municipalities.
Before joining state government, Rozzi founded OPRAmachine, New Jersey's first statewide freedom of information platform, which processed over 75,000 public records requests and released 250GB of government data before he stepped down in 2024. He has also published open-source tools used by researchers nationwide, including zipcodeR, an R package on CRAN with 53+ peer-reviewed citations (as of March 2026).
His career spans academic research as founding Data Scientist at the Rutgers Urban and Civic Informatics Lab, where he established technical infrastructure and analytical capabilities for urban policy research. He also served as a Research Affiliate at the New Jersey State Policy Lab, leading research on the opioid crisis through advanced spatial data analysis.
Rozzi holds an M.S. in Data Science & Strategic Analytics and a B.A. in Political Science from Stockton University. He holds the Certified Public Manager (CPM) credential from the New Jersey program administered by the Civil Service Commission and delivered by Rutgers SPAA, where his capstone modernized customer service for the State's largest housing division. He was part of the A4-S50 implementation team that received the 2025 Governor's Team of Excellence Award, and he took first place in the 3D category of the 2022 NJ DEP GIS Mapmaking Contest.
Expertise Areas: Civic Technology, Digital Transformation, Data Science & Analytics, Full-Stack Development, Government Innovation, Open Data, Public Records Policy, GIS & Spatial Analysis