INTERNATIONAL & DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIST

Melissa Burns is an international and development economist who has worked in about twelve countries in Africa, as well as in the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. She has also worked for United Nations organizations in Rome and New York City, for architect-planners in Paris, and in host country posts; as well as at USAID, World Bank and World Health Organization country missions worldwide.

She was educated at Bryn Mawr, MIT, and Yale. Her fields of specialization include large and small-scale agriculture, water supply and sanitation, health care delivery systems, maternal-child health, reproductive health and other fields. One of the projects on which she worked achieved about a 45% reduction in infant mortality. She has over twenty-five years of experience working on projects and programs throughout the developing world. When not overseas she lives in the Washington, DC area.