Ellen Houston

About

Professor Houston has taught for Marymount Manhattan College since 2006 as both a full-time and adjunct lecturer. She returns to MMC for the Spring 2018 semester as Visiting Assistant Professor of International Studies. Her specialization in international development and professional work as a consultant in the United Nations system has brought her around the globe as both researcher and policy specialist. 

As the UN system began preparing for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the late 2000s, Professor Houston was a leading author on a background paper on Gender and Climate Change, putting together early evidence of impacts of a warming climate for women in developing countries. More recently, her research has focused on global commodity issues, particularly how the drive to modernize agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa is negatively impacting small-scale women farmers and food security.

In her time at the UN, Ellen’s position was thematic, focusing on economic security and rights with much of her work in Asia and Africa, working mainly on gender and women’s empowerment, feminization of poverty and livelihoods in Africa, human trafficking in South Asia, and women working in export processing zones throughout Asia countries.

Professor Houston is a member of the Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA), Committee on the Status of Women in the Economic Profession (CSWEP), International Association of Feminist Economists (IAFFE), Society for International Development (SID), Union of Radical and Political Economists (URPE), and the Women’s Foreign Policy Group of the Foreign Policy Association.