Staff
The director of the Institutions for Fragile States/Innovations for Successful Societies initiative is Jennifer Widner, Professor of Politics & International Affairs. The associate director is Daniel Scher.
Jennifer Widner is Professor of Politics and International Affairs and Director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace & Justice. Before joining the Princeton faculty in 2004-5, she taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan. Her current research focuses on constitution writing and constitutional design, as well as institutions and service delivery in developing countries, especially Africa. Her most recent book is Building the Rule of Law (W. W. Norton), a study of courts and law in Africa and other developing country contexts. She has published articles on a variety of topics in Democratization, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Development Studies, Current History, Daedalus, the American Journal of International Law, and other publications. Email. jwidner@princeton.edu
Daniel Scher is Associate Director of Institutions for Fragile States/Innovations for Successful Societies. Daniel is a graduate of Princeton University. He has written about recuperation of assets diverted by leaders of fragile states and has served as a research specialist on several projects at the university. He has helped to develop the IFS oral history program and is the primary manager of the project. He has also taken the lead in developing our interview/memo series on policing and re-building waste management systems after conflict. He has built on knowledge developed in his native South Africa to help shape the design of IFS. Daniel is a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. Email: dscher@princeton.edu
Rohan Mukherjee is a Senior Research Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. He holds a B.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University and an MPA in international development from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has worked with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, Lesotho, and the National Knowledge Commission, an advisory body to the Prime Minister of India. His academic interests are in international affairs and the political economy of development, particularly the impact of institutions and ideologies on policy outcomes. Email: rmukherj@princeton.edu
Itumeleng Makgetla is a Senior Research Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. Tumi holds a B.A. from Harvard (2005) and an M.Phil in Politics from Oxford, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. She has worked with the Mail & Guardian in South Africa, served as a field producer with Forward Films Africa, and worked on a variety of research projects in Ghana and Pakistan. She is a citizen of the United States and South Africa. Email: makgetla@princeton.edu
Matt Devlin is a Research Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. Matt holds a B.A. in history from Yale. Previously he worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he coordinated the Council’s Religion and Foreign Policy initiative. Before joining the CFR he was Assistant Editor at the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo. As part of his work at the center he travelled around the region, conducting hundreds of interviews with prominent democracy advocates, politicians, religious leaders, judges, military officials, and civil society groups. Matt is a citizen of Germany and the United States. Email: matthewrdevlin@hotmail.com
David Hausman is Research Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. David holds a B.A. from Harvard University. He has worked with the Berliner Zeitung, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He has lived in Kenya and South Africa. Email: dhausman@princeton.edu
Amy Mawson is a Research Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. She has a Master of Science degree in Globalization and Development and a B.A. in Economic and Social Studies from the University of Manchester, UK. Prior to joining ISS, Amy spent two years working with the Government of Burundi as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow in Bujumbura. She has also worked at the European Commission's Delegation to the UN in New York, and in Brussels with Solidar (a European NGO network) and the European Parliament's Development Committee. Email. amawson@princeton.edu
Sally Waltman is Production Specialist with the Innovations for Successful Societies program. She holds an MPH in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from Yale. She has worked as a project manager at Mathematica Policy Research, and at Princeton’s Office of Population Research. She supports data management and research compliance (human subjects) functions for IFS. Email: swaltman@princeton.edu
Susan Newton-Dunn is the Program Manager of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace & Justice. Susan Newton Dunn is Program Manager for the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, providing administrative and program assistance to the Director. Susan brings the experience of over twenty years working at the highest levels in the corporate world, working directly for the Chairman and CEO of a major newspaper, and the Chief Executive Officers of two corporations in the medical field. Her interest in politics and international affairs lead to her live in Paris, France where she met her husband. She is a graduate of Utah State University with a BS in Education. Email: snewton@princeton.edu