Dr. Michael Morfit brings an unusual range of skills, experience and professional networks to the School of Foreign Service, having served over three decades with academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, grant-making foundations, for-profit consulting firms, and the U.S. Government. He has a direct understanding of operational requirements at the project level, as well as extensive experience in conducting policy analyses, leading program designs and undertaking project evaluations.

As a commissioned Foreign Service Officer with USAID, Dr. Morfit conceived and developed the multi-billion dollar Multilateral Assistance Initiative to support the Aquino administration after the ‘People Power Revolution’ in the Philippines. As the Director for the Office of Strategic Planning at USAID, Officer-in-Charge for Central and Eastern Europe, Director of the Office of Caribbean Affairs and the Director of the Haiti Task Force in Washington, D.C., he was directly involved in U.S. Government planning and policy formation for major international development initiatives.

For nearly a decade, Dr. Morfit was Vice President of Development Alternatives, Inc., a large U.S.-based for-profit consulting firm, where he launched the democracy and governance practice, overseeing its growth in annual revenues from $3 million to $25 million. This practice involved support for civil society development and public participation, reform of local government structures, anti-corruption initiatives and legislative strengthening.

Dr. Morfit has particularly extensive experience in Indonesia, having worked there for eight years with the Ford Foundation and USAID. He has consulted with the Government of Indonesia on developing strategies for public engagement to combat corruption, under a program funded by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation. Dr. Morfit was also commissioned by the Office of the President in Jakarta to complete an analysis of the Helsinki negotiations that resulted in the resolution of the long-running violent conflict in Aceh. Based on this work, he has advised civil society organizations in Sri Lanka on how lessons from Aceh might be used to resolve the conflict there.

His most recent consulting assignment has been in Serbia, where he has been facilitating an ongoing multi-stakeholder negotiation to revise the legal framework governing responses to emergency situations and civil protection.