Noam is a Fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program and the Policy Director of the Brookings Institution's Foreign Assistance Reform Project.

Through his work on the project he has researched and written about policies and politics related to modernizing U.S. foreign aid and global development efforts. He is a principal of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network and a member of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Development, which was convened by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He joined Brookings in 2007 as Senior Manager of the project, working closely with Lael Brainard, who was then the Vice President of the Global Economy and Development Program.

Before coming to Brookings, he served from 2003-2007 at the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he worked on humanitarian affairs, reconstruction, conflict transformation, and interagency coordination. In addition to his prior work with USAID in Sri Lanka, and with Save the Children (U.S.) in Haiti, his overseas experience also includes his time as a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellow, when Mr. Unger carried out an independent ethnography project in Central America, South America, West Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. He has also previously worked in the private sector, focusing on software research and design as a linguistics analyst for StreamSage, Inc. Noam is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Noam earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Religion from Swarthmore College. He holds a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

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