Michelle S. Parker

Michelle S. Parker has recently returned to the United States after working for two and one-half years in Afghanistan as the first development advisor to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, where she was responsible for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Afghanistan portfolio, strategizing and operationalizing development in a counterinsurgency, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), and providing an overall view of the development sector in Afghanistan (2006). She was also managing the USAID Jalalabad Field Office, where she served as the USAID representative in Nangarhar and Laghman provinces, and as the development lead in the Jalalabad PRT (2004­–06). Ms Parker has consulted with the International Republican Institute in Wuhan, China (2004); the National Taurida Vernadsky University in Crimea, Ukraine (2002–03); and USAID in Kathmandu, Nepal (2002). She has also spent a number of years as a management analyst with the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland (2001–04). Ms Parker has a BA in international relations from Georgia State University and a MS in conflict analysis and resolution from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. She is conducting her International Affairs Fellowship at RAND in Washington, DC.