Margie Ferris Morris, holds an advanced degree in Nutrition Sciences having over 35 years of international development and relief experience, spending seven years overseas. Her expertise is in performance monitoring and evaluation, global health and nutrition program design and management, training, emergency health operations and conflict mitigation.
She commenced her international work with the World Food Programme in Thailand, where she served as Nutrition Coordinator for refugee camps along the Thai-Kampuchean border. She has completed assignments in two dozen countries with the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, US State Department, USAID, U.S. Peace Corps, the National and International Red Cross and private contractors. Ferris Morris also worked extensively for USAID in assisting Bureaus to define food security performance indicators (democracy, education, agriculture, health and food aid), and strategies, activities and indicators for peace processes, youth in conflict, and land and gems in conflicts. She supported teams in assessing mission performance in the areas of food security and humanitarian assistance.
She led the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to produce a Practical Guide to Standards and Indicators in UNHCR Operations, translated into three languages and circulated in UNHCR and 700 agencies worldwide.
Her academic experience includes staff on the domestic community-based nutrition surveillance program at Cornell University that addressed hunger and malnutrition issues in upstate New York. She has taught courses in humanitarian assistance and response for US State Department and UNHCR, Tulane, Johns Hopkins and American Universities, as well as public health in complex emergencies for George Washington University. She is married and has 3 adult children.