Barbara Isaacs

June 1, 2015, Bogazici University, Istanbul

June 3, 2015, UNICEF Turkey Country Office, Ankara

Barbara Isaacs is the Academic Director of London Montessori Centre International (MCI). She joined MCI in 1998 after training Montessori teachers at both Montessori St Nicholas and London Montessori Centre. She was the proprietor of Seedlings Montessori Nursery in Oxfordshire for 15 years.  She has over 20 years of experience as a teacher trainer and she is the Senior Accreditation Officer for the Montessori Accreditation and Evaluation Board. She is the author of two teacher-training books in the Montessori Method: “Bringing the Montessori Approach to your Early Years Practice” and “Understanding the Montessori Approach: Early Years Education in Practice”

Read the article: "Montessori Teacher Training in neighbourhood Crèches of Istanbul: The Project and Beyond"

Prof. Melani Cammett

Melani Cammett is Associate Professor of Political Science, a faculty associate at the Population Studies and Training centre, and a faculty fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Cammett specializes in the political economy of development and the Middle East. Her new book, “Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon” explores how politics shape the distribution of welfare goods. Cammett’s co-edited book, “The Politics of Non-State Social Welfare in the Global South” examines the political consequences of non-state welfare provision in diverse regions. Her current research focuses on public and social goods provision by Islamists and other types of public and private actors in several Middle Eastern countries. Cammett has published work on a diverse array of topics in numerous scholarly and policy-oriented journals. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and has consulted for various development policy organizations.

Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogazici University

Read our article: "Bread, Freedom and Social Justice: A Political Economy Framework for Understanding Arab Uprising"

Prof. Louis Putterman

December 17, 2013, Kadir Has University

In association with Department of Economics at Kadir Has University

Louis Putterman is Professor of Economics at Brown University. Putterman conducts research on economic behaviour, economic development, organizations, incentives, and economic systems. His recent research topics include effects of early history on recent levels and rates of growth; industrial enterprise behaviour and employment in China; income distribution; and rural economic development. In recent years, he has been conducting experiments to study trust, reciprocity, cooperation, and preferences regarding the distribution of income. Prof. Putterman holds a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University and a PhD in Economics from Brown University. He received Fulbright and other research awards to conduct research in Tanzania and in China. He has been active in Brown’s Development Studies program, directing its master’s program since 2000 and its undergraduate program since 2005. He was president of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies in 2000-2001. He has written and edited eight books and published over 80 scholarly articles in refereed journals and books. His latest book “The Good, The Bad, and The Economy – Does Human Nature Rule Out a Better World?” was published in 2012.

Prof. Lant Pritchett

July 16, 2013, Republic of Turkey Ministry of Development, Ankara

In association with the Republic of Turkey - Ministry of Development

Lant Pritchett is a renowned Harvard economist with many years of experience in the practice and teaching of development. He is currently Professor of the Practice of International Development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and faculty chair of the MPA/ID program since 2007. He is a non-resident fellow of the centre for Global Development, and a senior fellow of BREAD. He is also co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. Pritchett’s work primarily focuses on labour, education, migration, and social protection. He held several research positions at the World Bank between 1988 and 2007 and served as the lead economist in the Social Development group of the South Asia region in Delhi, India in 2004-2007. Pritchett helped produce several World Bank reports including World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development, Assessing Aid: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why (1998), World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for the Poor. He has authored or co-authored over 50 academic papers and published widely on issues of economics, demography, education, and health.

Read our article: "A Story of Snakes and Turtles as told by Pritchett"