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Following more than a decade of service at the United Nations, Catherine Bertini joined the faculty of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2005 as Professor of Public Administration. She teaches courses in Humanitarian Action, UN Management, and Girls' Education, drawing on her vast experience gained during years of leadership in public sector management, international organizations, humanitarian relief, and nutrition policy.

Professor Bertini's career spans public service at international, national, state, and local levels and includes private sector and foundation experience. She was the driving force behind reform of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), where she was the Chief Executive for ten years, from 1992 to 2002. During her tenure WFP's institutional changes in the area of efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability were cited as a model of UN reform by the United States government and the thirty-six government Executive Board of WFP.

She has received honorary degrees from McGill University in Canada, State University of New York, Loyola University, Colgate University, American University of Rome, John Cabot University in Italy, Slovak Agricultural University in the Slovak Republic, Pine Manor College, Dakota Wesleyan University, and the University of South Carolina. Professor Bertini was chosen as the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate and, in 2007 was awarded the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition.

She is a founding board member of the Global Humanitarian Forum, a member of Board of International Food and Agricultural Development, a board member of the Stuart Family Foundation, a juror for the Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize, a member of the Advisory Council at Rockefeller College on Public Affairs and Policy, and a member of the Advisory Council at William Jefferson Clinton School of Public Service. She has also served as a Senior Fellow in Agricultural Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There, she advised on the development of the foundation's new agricultural portfolio which strives to improve the well being of poor farmers in Africa and South Asia. Currently, she is co-chair of the Initiative on Global Agriculture Development Project for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.


Public Affairs Appointments (pdf)

Honorary Degrees and Awards (pdf)