Profile
Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy, is international coordinator of the global research policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). An experienced development practitioner and scholar, she specializes in the links between employment, poverty, and gender. Before joining Harvard University in 1987, she lived for 15 years in Bangladesh where she worked with BRAC, one of the worlds largest NGOs, and in India where she served as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh. She is the author of numerous books including, most recently, Progress of the Worlds Women 2005: Women, Work, and Poverty; Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture; and Perpetual Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India. Chen received a PhD in South Asia regional studies from the University of Pennsylvania.