Author Type: Staff

Kristine Herrmann-DeLuca is a Senior Governance Advisor in the Land and Resource Governance (LRG) Division. She is a long-time Democracy Officer in USAID’s Foreign Service with broad technical experience across the Democracy, Rights, and Governance (DRG) sector, focusing on cross-sectoral programming. Dr. Herrmann-DeLuca works to apply a governance lens to LRG programming, and to enhance collaboration between LRG and DRG as well as other Agency-wide initiatives.

Educational Background

Dr. Herrmann-DeLuca holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and a Master’s degree in International Politics/Peace and Conflict Resolution studies from American University’s School of International Service, and a Bachelor’s degree in Media Communications from CUNY Hunter College.

Regional Experience

She has served as the Democracy and Governance Office Director for USAID Missions in Pakistan, Malawi, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Deputy Director of the Democracy and Social Reform Office in Armenia. Dr. Herrmann-DeLuca was Team Lead for the Democracy, Governance, Peace and Security Team in USAID’s Asia Bureau Technical Support Office.

Previous Experience

In the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Bureau, Dr. Herrmann-DeLuca was Governance Office Director, and was an active member of DRG’s Democratic Climate Action Working Group. Her additional USAID/Washington experience includes tours as Office Director for the DRG Center’s Cross-Sectoral Programs Division, and Acting Director of the former Conflict Management and Mitigation Office (now the Conflict and Violence Prevention Office.)

Overview:

Chloe has over 15 years of experience in the field of business and human rights. She was most recently at Oxfam, where she led engagement with food, beverage, and agriculture companies on land and human rights as part of the organization’s Behind the Brands initiative. At Oxfam, she also served as country engagement lead for the organization’s work on inclusive value chains, supporting colleagues across the Oxfam confederation to develop and implement local private sector engagement strategies. Prior to Oxfam, Chloe worked with food and beverage companies on their human rights strategies with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Corporate Responsibility Initiative, and on conflict minerals at the Enough Project.

Background:

Chloe holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies from the University of Washington.

Regional Experience:

Chloe has worked in many different countries and regions, including Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Cambodia, Brazil, and Guatemala, to name a few.

Email: sturano@usaid.gov

 Overview:

Sam Turano is a Crisis, Stabilization, and Governance Foreign Service Officer working in the LRG Division technical team where he brings his democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) expertise to issues related to green energy and critical minerals, land tenure, and conflict. His background includes designing and managing programs focused on a range of DRG technical areas in the contexts of violent extremism, climate change-related crises, and political transitions across the Sahel and South and Southeast Asia.

Background:

Mr. Turano holds a BA in American History from the University of Rochester and an MA-SID from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

Regional Experience:

Mr. Turano has served overseas at USAID Missions in Afghanistan, Burma, Senegal, and Thailand. 

Email: mlibassi@usaid.gov

Overview:
Matthew Libassi is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow placed at USAID’s Land and Resource Governance Division. He supports USAID programming on artisanal and small-scale mining, responsible mineral sourcing, land tenure, Indigenous Peoples, environmental defenders, and other topics at the intersection of resource governance and equity. Matt is an environmental social scientist with previous research on small-scale mining and conflicts around resource extraction.

Educational Background:
Dr. Libassi holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, with a focus on Society and Environment, from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in International Studies from Vassar College.

Regional Experience:
Dr. Libassi has regional expertise in Southeast Asia. He has lived, taught, and conducted research in Indonesia, which has been the primary focus of his scholarly work. His work at USAID supports resource governance in a broader set of countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Previous Experience:
Prior to joining USAID, Matt worked as a university researcher and educator. He held a postdoctoral position with the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, conducted research as a Fulbright awardee, studied environment and development at UC Berkeley, and taught academic writing at universities in Indonesia. He has published research on environmental politics, resource-based livelihoods, and mining conflicts in scientific journals including Geoforum, Political Geography, and The Extractive Industries and Society. 

Karol Boudreaux is a Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor at USAID where she supports USAID Missions, Bureaus and Offices to design, develop and implement activities and policies that promote secure land rights and reflect the key role that equitable land and resource governance plays in promoting multiple development objectives.

Educational Background

Ms. Boudreaux, a lawyer, has published widely on topics related to land tenure and property rights and she earned her B.A. from Douglass College, Rutgers University, and her J.D. from the University of Virginia, where she focused on international law.

Regional Experience

Ms. Boudreaux has broad experience working on land tenure and land and resource governance issues in Southern, East and West Africa as well as in Burma, China, India, Kosovo and Timor L’Este.

Previous Experience

She has over two decades of experience working on land and development issues. Ms. Boudreaux was previously Chief Program Officer at Landesa, a global non-profit that works on land issues around the world as well as the Land and Resource Rights Practice Lead at the Cloudburst Group, a USAID implementing partner. Before that she served as the Africa land tenure specialist with USAID.

Kim Thompson is a career foreign service environment officer who specializes in the linkages between natural resources and conflict, with a particular focus on mining. She is a Senior Advisor for Natural Resources and Conflict and the agency lead on artisanal and small-scale mining and serves as USAID’s Industry Lead for Mining. She has served overseas at USAID Missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Thailand. Prior to joining USAID, she worked at the World Resources Institute and the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute. She holds an MS in Environmental Policy and International Development from the London School of Economics.

Educational Background

Mr. Brooks received a master’s degree in Environmental Science with a focus on International Development and Conservation from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science. He also received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation.

Regional Experience

During Mr. Brooks’ time at USAID, his work has focused on Burma, the Philippines, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Zambia, Ghana, and Peru.

Previous Experience

Mr. Brooks brings expertise in land tenure and resource governance specific to international development and natural resource management. He also brings over 10 years of experience in forestry and coastal resource management, and 5 years of experience in urban natural resource management issues.

Educational Background

Ioana Bouvier has a master’s degree in Geographic Information Science for Development and Environment from Clark University, Worcester, MA and a bachelor’s degree in Geography and Environmental Science from University of Bucharest, Romania. At Clark University, she conducted research to evaluate the impact of illicit crop cultivation policies on forest conversion in Northeastern Burma.

Regional Experience

Ioana worked on international development programs in over 20 countries across Eastern Europe, Latin America and Caribbean region, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Previous Experience

Ms. Bouvier has over 25 years of experience in natural resource management, with a focus on applying data, technology, and participatory approaches to empower communities and to advance natural resource governance. Prior to joining USAID, she served as a data science/analytic methods team lead at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, where she developed methods for data analysis and visualization and briefed policy makers. Before joining the U.S. Government, Ms. Bouvier worked as a geospatial and international development specialist, providing field-based technical support and training for humanitarian relief, climate change, biodiversity, and natural resource management programs.

Publications and Presentations

• The Land-Potential Knowledge System (LandPKS): Mobile apps and collaboration for optimizing climate change investments (co-author), Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 2015
• Does de Facto Community Forest Tenure Affect Forest Condition? Policy-relevant Baseline Findings From a Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of a Forest Carbon Mitigation Project in Zambia (co-author), submitted to Forest Policy and Economics, 2016
• Land and Peace in Colombia, Mason Data Journalism Featured Story, 2016

Educational Background

Mr. Stevens is a licensed attorney. He holds a master’s degree from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and a law degree from the University of Illinois.

Regional Experience

Mr. Stevens’s work focuses on areas of high mitigation potential and conservation value, including Mexico and Central America, Amazon basin, West Africa, and Central Africa, among others.

Previous Experience

Prior to joining USAID, Caleb was a Property Rights Specialist with the environmental think tank World Resources Institute, where he was lead author of Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change, one of the first reports to synthesize the counterfactual evidence linking climate change mitigation with secure land and resource rights for indigenous peoples and local communities. The report has been cited and discussed in the New York Times, Economist Magazine, and World Development, among others. Previously, Caleb also served as Legal Advisor to the Liberian Land Commission, where he led a multi-stakeholder policy reform process and was principal drafter of Liberia’s Land Rights Policy (2013). That policy marked the first formal recognition of full property rights for local communities in Liberia’s history. 

Publications and Presentations

• • Wineman, A., Jayne, T.S., & Stevens, C. 2022. The Relationship between Medium-Scale Farms and Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
  • Caleb Stevens, Christina Faust, Heather Huntington, Cara Brook, Colin Parrish, David Wilkie, Sara Carlson, Andrew Tobiason, Mary Rowen, Ioana Bouvier, Yuliya Panfil, & Tim Robustelli, Governance, Land Use Change, and Mitigating Viral Zoonotic Risk at the Human-Environment Interface: A Review and Recommendations for Applied Research (2021). 
  • Stevens, C., Panfil, Y., Linkow, B., Hagopian, A., Mellon, C., Heidenrich, T., Kulkarni, N., Bouvier, I., Brooks, S., Lowery, S., and Green, J., LAND AND DEVELOPMENT: A RESEARCH AGENDA FOR LAND AND RESOURCE GOVERNANCE AT USAID (2020).
  • Caleb Stevens, Adi Greif, & Dieter Bouma, Do Companies Care About Sustainable Land Governance? An Empirical Assessment of Company Land Policies, INT’L J. SUSTAINABLE DEV. & WORLD ECOLOGY (2019). 
  • Thom Jayne, Milu Muyanga, Ayala Wineman, Hosaena Ghebru, Caleb Stevens, et al., Are Medium-Scale Farms Driving Agricultural Transformation in sub-Saharan Africa? AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (2019).
  • T.S. Jayne, Milu Muyanga, Ayala Wineman, Hosaena Ghebru, Caleb Stevens, et al., SYNTHESIS REPORT: THE CHANGING FACE OF AFRICAN FARMLAND IN AN ERA OF RURAL TRANSFORMATION (2019).
  • Benjamin Linkow, Caleb Stevens, & Jennifer Lisher, Reporting on SDG Indicator 1.4.2 for High Income Countries: The Case of the U.S., paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 25-30, 2019. 
  • Ioana Bouvier, Stephen Brooks, Jeremy Green, Sarah Lowery, & Caleb Stevens, Using Participatory Approaches and Innovative Technology to Empower Communities in Securing their Land, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 25-30, 2019. 
  • Caleb J. Stevens, Nomos and Nullification: A Coverian View of New York’s Habitual Offender Law, 1926 to 1936, 56 AM. CRIM. L. REV. 427 (2019) 
  • Alexandra Hartman, Heather Huntington, Adi Greif, Kate Marple-Cantrell, & Caleb Stevens, Community Land Protection in Liberia: The Impact of Neocustomary Norms and Institutions, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 19-23, 2018. 
  • Kate Marple-Cantrell, Caleb Stevens, & Sarah Lowery, Can Strengthening Community Land Governance Achieve Development Objectives? Findings from an Evaluation of Namati’s Community Land Protection Program in Liberia, paper prepared for XVI Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, Utrecht, Netherlands, July 10-14, 2017.
  • Kate Marple-Cantrell, Aidan Schneider, Caleb Stevens, & Heather Huntington, Land Use Rights, Land Governance Institutions, and Tenure Security Indicators in a Pastoral Community, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 20-24, 2017. 
  • Caleb Stevens & Chad Dear, Reducing Risks and Safeguarding People Amid Complexity, Uncertainty, and Change, paper prepared for Annual Conference of the Development Studies Association, Oxford University, September 12-14, 2016.
  • Caleb Stevens & Chad Dear, GUIDELINES ON COMPULSORY DISPLACEMENT AND RESETTLEMENT IN USAID PROGRAMMING (2016). 
  • Thom Jayne, Mercedes Stickler, Caleb Stevens, & Sarah Lowery, The Role of Land Policy in Agricultural Transformation and Inclusive Economic Growth: Implications for Africa, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 14-18, 2016.
  • Caleb Stevens & Dieter Bouma, Assessing Private Sector Adoption of New International Standards on Land Tenure, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 23-27, 2015. 
  • Stanley N. Toe & Caleb Stevens, Land Reform in Liberia: Developing the First National Land Policy, paper prepared for Conference on Land Policy in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, November 11-14, 2014. 
  • Caleb J. Stevens, The Legal History of Public Land in Liberia, 58 J. AFRICAN L. 250 (2014). 
  • Caleb Stevens, Katie Reytar, & Sarah Jane Ahmed, Measuring the Influence of Community Tenure on Deforestation and Climate Change: Which Bundle of Rights Is Best?, paper prepared for UNITAR-Yale Conference on Environmental Governance and Democracy, September 5-7, 2014. 
  • Caleb Stevens et al., SECURING RIGHTS, COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE: HOW STRENGTHENING COMMUNITY FOREST RIGHTS MITIGATES CLIMATE CHANGE (2014). 
  • Caleb J. Stevens et al., Community Rights and Forest Conditions: Analysis of the Contribution of Strengthened Community Tenure to Climate Change Mitigation, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 24-27, 2014. 
  • Paul De Wit & Caleb J. Stevens, 100 Years of Community Land Rights in Liberia: Lessons Learned for the Future, paper prepared for World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, March 24-27, 2014.
  • Caleb J. Stevens, Hunting a Dictator as a Transnational Legal Process: The Internalization Problem and the Hissène Habré Case, 24 PACE INT’L L. REV. 190 (2012).

Janet Nackoney is a Land and Resource Governance Officer at USAID where she leads efforts to promote equitable and inclusive access to land and resource rights around the world. She has a background in geospatial data and analysis and works in the areas of land tenure, gender and social inclusion, climate change mitigation, tropical forest and carbon monitoring, ecological conservation, and food and livelihood security.

Educational Background

Dr. Nackoney holds both a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree from the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland and a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Geography at Indiana University – Bloomington.

Regional Experience

Dr. Nackoney has extensive experience working in sub-Saharan African countries, with particular focus on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, and Kenya.

Previous Experience

Dr. Nackoney has over 20 years of experience as a geographer specializing in applying geospatial technology and analysis to advance information development around biological conservation and sustainable land use and governance, including participatory mapping and community land use planning approaches. Dr. Nackoney’s prior research at the University of Maryland (UMD) focused on building capacity for participatory mapping and forest zoning with local communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), simulating scenario-based models of agricultural expansion and deforestation, and developing data, approaches and tools to advance biological conservation and food security in African countries. Prior to UMD, she worked at the World Resources Institute (WRI) on ecosystem services mapping in Kenya and at the University of Georgia on land cover change mapping. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) and is on the Advisory Board for Congo Education Partners, which assists a small rural college in northern DRC.