Martha Chen
| Martha Alter Chen | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Martha Alter February 9, 1944 |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | academic |
Martha Alter Chen (Marty) (born February 9, 1944) is an American academic, scholar and social worker, who presently a Lecturer in Public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and International Coordinator of the global research-policy-action network WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing). Dr. Chen is a development practitioner and scholar who has worked with the working poor in India, South Asia, and around the world. Her areas of specialization are employment, poverty alleviation, informal economy, and gender. She lived in Bangladesh working with BRAC, one of the world's largest non-governmental organizations, and in India, as field representative of Oxfam America for India and Bangladesh for 15 years.
In 2011, she received the Padma Shri from the Government of India for her contributions in the field of Social work.
Born February 9, 1944 to Barry and Jim Alter, Chen, with her brother, Tom Alter, was raised in India as a third-generation American. Both her paternal grandparents and her parents were Protestant Christian missionaries in India. She attended from 1948 to 1960. After graduating, she studied for a year at Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, India. She then went to the US for her undergraduate and graduate studies, where she received a B.A. cum laude (with honors in English literature) from Connecticut College for Women and a PhD in South Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
During the 1970s and much of the 1980s, Dr. Chen lived with her husband and children in Bangladesh, where she worked with the NGO BRAC. Afterward, she lived in India, where she was the field representative of Oxfam America covering India and Bangladesh.
...
Wikipedia