The Program Faculty is composed of the following individuals from the partnering institutions:

Karen Jacobsen, Ph.D.
Jennifer Leaning, M.D., S.M.H.
Daniel Maxwell, Ph.D.
Sharon Stanton Russell, Ph.D.
Steve Van Evera, Ph.D.
Michael VanRooyen, M.D., M.P.H.
Peter Walker, Ph.D.

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Karen Jacobsen, Ph.D.

Karen Jacobsen is an associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and the research director of the Forced Migration Program at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. The Forced Migration Program provides an institutional focus for the study of and intervention in contemporary displacement crises. She holds both a Ph.D. and a S.M. in political science from MIT, and a master's degree in sociology from Northeastern University. She received a B.A. in political science and English literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Jennifer Leaning, M.D., S.M.H.

Jennifer Leaning is Professor of the Practice of International Health and Co-Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. She is also an assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School. She is board certified in both internal medicine and emergency medicine, and is an attending physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She has extensive field experience in disaster response, humanitarian emergencies, and human rights investigations in the Middle East, former USSR, Somalia, Kosovo, and the African Great Lakes region. She holds degrees from Radcliffe College, the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

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Daniel Maxwell, Ph.D.

Dan Maxwell is an Associate Professor and Research Director for Food Security and Complex Emergencies at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Prior to joining the Center, he was the Deputy Regional Director for CARE International in Eastern and Central Africa, based in Nairobi. His recent research has focused on food security, famine, chronic vulnerability, and humanitarian response in complex emergencies. He holds a B.Sc. Degree from Wilmington College, a Master's Degree from Cornell, and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin.

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Sharon Stanton Russell, Ph.D.

Sharon Stanton Russell is a research scholar at the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she chairs the Steering Group of the Inter-University Committee on International Migration and directs the Mellon-MIT Program on Non-Governmental Organizations and Forced Migration. A political scientist, she holds a Ph.D. in political science from MIT, a M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and an A.M. in social policy from the University of Chicago.

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Steve Van Evera, Ph.D.

Steve Van Evera is a professor of political science and Associate Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a specialist in international affairs and security studies. He has written on American foreign and defense policy, nuclear weapons policy, nationalism and war, military policy and the causes of war, the origins of the First World War, and the social sciences methodology. He received his B.A. in government from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Arts and Science.

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Michael VanRooyen, M.D., M.P.H.

Michael VanRooyen is Chief of the Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Co-Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Dr. VanRooyen has worked extensively in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in over thirty countries, including recent crises in Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, and Honduras. He holds degrees from Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Illinois.

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Peter Walker, Ph.D.

Peter Walker is Director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. He has been active in development and disaster response since 1979. He joined the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva in 1990 where he was Director of Disaster Policy for ten years before moving to Bangkok as Head of the Federation’s regional programs for South East Asia. Dr. Walker has traveled extensively in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union and has published widely on subjects as diverse as the development of indigenous knowledge and famine early warning systems to the role of military forces in disaster relief. He was the founder and manager of the World Disasters Report and played a key role in initiating and developing both the Code of Conduct for disasters workers and the Sphere humanitarian standards. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental science.

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