Leadership

Jillian J. Foster

Founder, Global Insight & Department of Political Science, Yale University

Jillian J. Foster studies armed group recruitment and mobilization and the performative nature of political violence at Yale University. Prior to joining Yale’s Department of Political Science, Foster completed masters degrees in gender studies from University College London and data science from New York University. As a Gender, Peace & Security expert, Foster has spent over a decade designing and leading fifteen quasi-experimental and mixed-methods studies, along with fieldwork in 12 countries. She is the founder of Global Insight, a consultancy specializing in the use of gender-sensitive, mixed-methods empirical research in fragile contexts. Foster is the Principal Investigator for the Women in Conflict Project, a research initiative - data collection: Somalia/land (2019); Afghanistan (2017); Syrian, Kurdish, and Palestinian women in Lebanon (2015); Tajikistan borderlands (2011) - that recently launched a podcast of the same name and for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) joint review of conflict-related sexual violence and sexual exploitation and abuse.

Foster’s research has been supported by UN Women, CARE, the One Earth Future Fund, University College London, UNHCR and UNDP, in addition to the Yale University MacMillan Center Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Humanitarian Responses Fellowship. Her work has informed programming and policy at UN DPO and DPPA, CARE, Plan International, World Vision, UNHCR, UN Women, the UN Trust Fund, the International Rescue Committee, and countless other INGOs. She has presented her research to academics and practitioners in Atlanta, Geneva, Ghana, Lebanon, New York, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Washington, DC.

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Jillian J. Foster

Dr. Morgan Richards-Melamdir

Independent Researcher

Morgan Richards-Melamdir is a Sociologist and the Sector Lead for Poverty and Inequality with Global Insight. She's spent nearly 15  years facilitating data-driven decision-making in partnership with NGOs and government agencies, as well as research institutes and academia. Dr. Richards-Melamdir’s thematic work focuses on gender, inequality, poverty, livelihoods, and social policy, while her technical skills include quasi-experimental and correlative research design, qualitative, quantitative, and spatial data collection and analysis, and monitoring and evaluation system design. Her work has informed projects funded or implemented by UN Women, UNDP, ILO, World Bank, USAID, World Vision, Plan USA, WUR and others. Dr. Richards-Melamdir’s research and evaluation work is truly global in nature, including projects in North and South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of her programmatic work and academic research have been featured in journals, policy briefs, think pieces, reports, and conferences. Dr. Richards-Melamdir’s credentials include a PhD in Sociology, with research focused on gender, inequality, and social policy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as well as an MpH, MA, and BA in Sociology.

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Dr. Morgan Richards-Melamdir