Carolyn Makinson has been executive director of the Women’s Refugee Commission since 2004. Before coming to the Women's Refugee Commission, she was executive director of MIT’s Center for International Studies. From 1988 to 2002, she was responsible for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s population and refugee programs, and remained a senior advisor to the Foundation until 2006. She was a member of the Roundtable on the Demography of Forced Migration (1999-2004), convened by the Committee on Population of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Carolyn has lived and worked extensively overseas, including as a research affiliate at the American University in Cairo, and as a country coordinator in Africa for the Demographic and Health Surveys project. She studied refugee programs in Rwanda, Guinea and Mozambique as an affiliate of the International Rescue Committee and of Save the Children U.S. during 1995-1996. Carolyn received a PhD in sociology and demography from Princeton University in 1986.

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