USAID Director of Office of Women in Development to Speak at Colorado State University on Monday, April 18

Colorado State University’s Women, Population, and the Environment Research Team and the School of Global Environmental Sustainability will host Katherine Blakeslee, director of the Office of Women in Development at USAID for a talk on “Women: Informing Social, Economic, and Political Development” on Monday, April 18.

The event will be from 11 a.m. to noon in the Lory Student Center Grey Rock room, followed by an open reception.

“In the context of sustainable development, Katherine Blakeslee is working in an office that is doing the most for gender issues and women,” said Francesca Cotrufo, co-PI for the Women, Population, and the Environment Research Team. “We are very lucky that she is able to come to CSU and discuss these issues and give insight into how her organization is able to move gender issues forward.”

In addition to being a Director at USAID, Blakeslee is also USAID’s coordinator for Agency activities to combat human trafficking. Prior to taking up her current position, she served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Administrator with special focus on conflict prevention, mitigation and peace building. Blakeslee has been associate assistant administrator and director of the Office of Policy Development and Program Review in the Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination. She represented the United States on the Task Force on Conflict, Peace and Development Cooperation at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee and is now the U.S. representative to the OECD/DAC Gendernet.

Katherine Blakeslee will also meet with students and members of WPE on the morning of April 18. For more information, go to http://wpe.colostate.edu.

About WPE
The Women, Population, and the Environment Research Team promotes the status of women globally through education and dissemination of applied knowledge on the challenging issues of the times, such as climate change, food shortage and health. Knowledge and education will enable and empower women to make informed decisions for themselves, their family and society.

About SoGES
A first for the state, the School of Global Environmental Sustainability is an umbrella organization that encompasses all environmental education and research at Colorado State University. The school positions CSU to address the multiple challenges to global sustainability through broad-based research, curricular programs and outreach initiatives. The school focuses on such issues as food security, environmental institutions and governance, sustainable communities, land and water resources, biodiversity, conservation and management, climate change and energy. This approach capitalizes on the university’s historic strength in environmental research and education and builds upon the education and research that already exists within all eight colleges on campus from the Warner College of Natural Resources to the College of Business.
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