Guide to Specialists

Merriam Mashatt
Director, Center of Innovation, Economies and Conflict

ARCHIVED SPECIALIST PROFILE

Merriam Mashatt joined USIP in May 2006 as the Director of the Center of Innovation, Economies and Conflict. Prior to joining USIP, Mashatt worked extensively on post-conflict Iraq reconstruction issues. She headed the economic section of the Iraq-Afghanistan Transition Planning Office, a joint Department of Defense/Department of State team. Previously, she served as the director of capacity development and the director of strategic communications for the Department of the Army’s Iraq Project and Contracting Office. In this position, she developed capacity building plans and procedures designed to strengthen the technical and institutional capacity of Iraqi ministry staff to sustain essential infrastructure facilities. In 2003, she served as the director of private sector development for the Washington office of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Prior to 2003, Mashatt worked on international commercial issues in both the public and private sectors. For over nine years, she managed a policy office at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, whose mission was to open foreign markets to U.S. exports and enforce U.S. trade laws. Mashatt holds an M.A. in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.

Publications:

• Conflict-Sensitive Approach to Infrastructure Development
  Special Report (January 2008)
• Employment Generation and Economic Development in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations
  Special Report (March 2007)
• State-Owned Enterprises: Post-Conflict Political Economy Considerations
  USIPeace Briefing (March 2007)
• Post Conflict Employment Generation: the Unmet Challenge (USIP, forthcoming).
• Infrastructure Development in Conflict Environments (USIP, forthcoming).
• "Oil Reconstruction in Iraq: Progress and Challenges," Oil & Gas Journal (December 19, 2005).