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Research Associates and Program Directors
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Sabina Alkire |
Management |
Research Associates and Program Directors
Sabina Alkire is an economist interested in the ongoing development of the capability approach initiated by Amartya Sen. She is currently the director of the Oxford Policy and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. Her publications include Valuing Freedoms: Sen’s Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction, as well as articles in philosophy and economics. Research interests include value judgements in economic decision-making, the conceptualization and measurement of individual agency freedoms (empowerment) particularly in South Asia, and further development of the capability approach by the academic, policy, and activist communities. Previously she has worked for the Commission on Human Security, coordinated the culture-poverty learning and research initiative at the World Bank, and developed participatory impact assessment methodologies with Oxfam and the Asia Foundation in Pakistan. She has a DPhil in Economics, an MSc in Economics for Development and an MPhil in Christian political ethics from Magdalen College, Oxford.
Sabina's Publications
Sudhir Anand is a world recognized development microeconomist and the current Research Director of GEI. He has published widely on inequality, poverty, and undernutrition; human development; population ethics; health economics; and the theory and measurement of economic inequality. After finishing graduate studies, Professor Anand joined the Faculty of Economics at Oxford University, where he is currently Professor of Economics. He was on the faculty at the Harvard University School of Public Health as a Visiting Professor in 1993-94, and as Adjunct Professor thereafter. From 1997 to 1999, he served as Acting Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies where he led a research initiative exploring the theory and measurement of health equity. Professor Anand recently chaired the WHO committee on global health systems performance assessment. He received his MA in mathematics and D.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford.
Sudhir's Publications
Lincoln Chen is an internationally recognized expert on international public health and has published extensively on world social development, especially in health, population, and food and nutrition. Dr. Chen founded the Global Equity Initiative in 2001 when he returned to Harvard after serving five years as Executive Vice President for Strategy of the Rockefeller Foundation. From 1987 to 1996, Dr. Chen was Taro Takemi Professor of International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of the university-wide Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. From 1973 to 1987, Dr. Chen was with the Ford Foundation, first on its staff in Bangladesh when he was seconded as Scientific Director of the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research and later as Representative in India. Dr. Chen has an MD from Harvard Medical School, and MPH from Johns Hopkins. Dr. Chen recently left his position as Founding Director of GEI to assume the Presidency of the China Medical Board of New York, a renown grant-making organization. He remains active as a Research Associate at GEI, focusing on the NGO Forum Program as well as the emerging China and India Program.
Lincoln's Publications
Lincoln's CV
John Hammock is the Managing Director of the Global Equity Initiative and Associate Professor of Public Policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He served as Executive Director at Oxfam America from 1984-1995 and as Executive Director at ACCION International from 1973-1980. John is a graduate of Denison University and the Fletcher School. At GEI, his work centers around the Human Development and Capability Program, with particular focus on policy issues and implementation.
John's Publications
Barbara Merz is a J.D. with interests in the rule of law, international development, and philanthropy. Prior to joining GEI, Ms. Merz worked with the Hewlett Foundation, promoting strategic philanthropy and developing international initiatives. She has also worked in the private sector for McKinsey & Company in the U.S., Europe, and South Africa. Ms. Merz was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to New Zealand and wrote her master’s thesis on indigenous rights and international law. In addition, she has published research on peace negotiations through the Stanford Center for Conflict Resolution and Negotiation. Prior to law school, she volunteered as a backcountry ranger at Denali National Park, Alaska. Ms. Merz holds a law degree from Stanford Law School; an M.A. from Victoria University, New Zealand; and an A.B. from Princeton University.
Barabara's Publications
Tony Pipa is the Facilitator of the NGO Forum Program at GEI. He has worked with nonprofits and foundations for more than 16 years and was the first executive director of the Warner Foundation, a private foundation focused on issues of race and poverty in North Carolina. After Hurricane Katrina, he helped design and served as a loaned executive to the new Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, and authored reports for the Aspen Institute and for Oxfam America on the nonprofit response and recovery status of low-income communities. Tony holds an A.B. from Duke University and M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government.
Tony Saich is the Daewoo Professor of International Affairs and Director of the GEI as well as the Harvard University Asia Center. He is Faculty Chair of the Asia Programs and the China Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. This work includes significant training programs for national and local officials from China, including a program to help Beijing officials prepare for the Olympics. He also sits on the Executive Committees of the Fairbank Center and the Universitys Asia Center. From 1994 until July 1999, he was the Representative for the China Office of the Ford Foundation. Prior to this he was the director of the Sinological Institute, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He first visited China as a student in 1976-77 and has been there for longer or shorter trips almost each year since. Currently, he is also a guest Professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, China. He has advised a wide range of government, private and not-for-profit organizations on work in China and elsewhere in Asia. He is a member of the Trustees of the China Medical Board of New York and International Bridges to Justice. His current research focuses on the interplay between state and society in China and the respective roles they play in the provision of public goods and services at the local level. He has written several books on developments in China. His primary focus at GEI is the emergent China and India Program.
Tony's CV - from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor at Harvard University and former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998. He has devoted much of his professional life to poverty alleviation, developing human capabilities, promoting equity, and building freedom. He has received widespread recognition for his work in welfare economics, which has included the development of the theory of social choice, increasing understanding of the theoretical foundation for comparing societies’ welfare distributions, and new definitions and measures of welfare and poverty. Professor Sen’s important conceptual work has also dealt with methods of collective decision-making. His research has included empirical studies of poverty and famine in Bangladesh, India, and the Sahara. Although he is an economist, Professor Sen has not been constrained in his research and policy studies by the boundaries of the discipline; he has turned to any field that could contribute to understanding the problems that he has addressed. Professor Sen was named Master at Trinity College in 1998. Prior to this position, he spent more than ten years at Harvard University where he was named the Lamont University Professor. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, he held Professorships at Oxford University, the London School of Economics, the Delhi School of Economics, and Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Professor Sen received his B.A. and PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge University.
Amartya's CV - from the Harvard University Department of Economics
Alex de Waal is a writer and activist on African issues. He is a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard and a director of Justice Africa, London. In his twenty-year career, he has studied the social, political and health dimensions of famine, war, genocide and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes. He has been at the forefront of mobilizing African and international responses to these problems. Alex’s books include: ‘Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan, 1984-5’ (Oxford University Press, 1989), ‘Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan,’ (African Rights, 1995), and ‘Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa,’ (Indiana University Press, 2004).
Alex is currently a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and he is also a Program Director at the Social Science Research Council in New York.
Alex's Publications
Management
Isabella Lau was appointed to the Asia Center GEI in April 2005. Prior to working at GEI, she was a Grant Administrator at the Harvard Medical School, overseeing mostly federal research grants. As the Financial Associate of the GEI, her primary role is to monitor the financial operations and act as the main contact for the University fiscal and financial policies.Susan McHone is the Financial Director of the Harvard University Asia Center and assists GEI with high-level grant and financial administration as well as human resources, allowing the substantive work of the GEI to proceed as seamlessly as possible. Susan has a B.A. in History from U-Mass Boston and an MBA in General Management from Simmons College Graduate School of Management.