Martha Blaxall is a Visiting Scholar at the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and an economic and management consultant on international economic development issues, trade policy, and natural resource management issues. She advises government, university, non-profit, and private sector clients, and works with governments on measures to strengthen private sector activities in developing countries. In the last several years, much of her fieldwork has centered on the former Soviet Union. She served as the Director of the Central Asia and Caucasus Project at Yale University’s Center for the Study of Globalization from 2001 – 2002, during which time she managed the planning and implementation of a major international conference on security issues in Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Until June 30, 2001, Dr. Blaxall
served as Vice President and Senior Economist at Development Alternatives,
Inc. In 1999-2000 she was the Team Leader of an Asian Development Bank project
designed to encourage policy reforms geared towards greater regional trade
among Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. In collaboration with
local economists in these three countries she analyzed the best prospects for
expanded trade and prepared estimates of the benefits and costs that would be
realized under a more liberalized trade regime within the region. She organized
workshops and policy seminars with government officials and private sector
representatives from each country to present these findings and explore
mechanisms to continue these intra-regional dialogues. Trade patterns with China were also examined.
Before joining DAI in 1991, Dr. Blaxall was Vice President of the
Economics Group of Hill and Knowlton and a Vice President of ICF-Kaiser Inc.,
an internationally known environmental consulting firm. She has served in
senior management roles at the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Health and
Human Services, and as a Budget Examiner in the Office of Management and
Budget. She holds a Ph.D. degree in
international economics from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University and a B.A. in economics from Wellesley College.
Dr. Blaxall is a member of the
Board of the Leadership Forum International, Vice President of the Board of the
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., and a member of the
Executive Committee of the Board of the Council for Excellence in Government.