Looking toward her future as the first "Economic Advisor to the Presidents of Harvard University and M.I.T. on the Economic Development of Cambridge," Penelope H. Schafer '66, an instructor at the Graduate School of Design, said yesterday that "Cambridge has unique strengths which can make it a great city. The problem is to find the strengths and utilize them."

Although Schafer works for Harvard and MIT, her new job is intended to benefit the Cambridge community. She said she will probably be doing "some kind of projection work to try to determine what Cambridge will be like in, say, ten years," and studying the kinds of employers and services that will meet Cambridge's future needs.

Although the City of Cambridge has its own economic advisors, Schafer stresses that her job is to complement the work done in city hall, and that she will work closely with them.

"Since there are so many issues that concern the city government people, there aren't enough resources to cover all of them," she said. "So they are mainly concerned with specific, short-term programs.

At present, Schafer, who hails from a Chicago suburb and works in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the GSD, is working on a research plan at the Joint Center for MIT and Harvard University on Urban Planning.

She says her goal is "to understand better the Cambridge economic structure in order to make the city a more viable and a better place to live."

Schafer came to Harvard from a job with a government consulting firm as a member of the Kerner Commission that investigated riots in urban areas. She is currently working toward a PhD. in urban planning at the GSD.