Joseph Kalt

Joseph P. Kalt is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Along with Profs. Stephen Cornell and Manley Begay of The University of Arizona, he directs the Project on Indigenous Governance and Development, formerly the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. In addition, he is the author of numerous studies on economic development and nation building in Indian Country, co-editor (with Stephen Cornell) of What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development, and a principal author of the Harvard Project’s The State of the Native Nations. Since 1987, the Harvard Project has worked for and with tribes and tribal organizations, providing research, advisory services, and leadership education on issues of nation building. Together with the University of Arizona’s Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, the Project has formed The Partnership for Native Nation Building.

Since 2005, Prof. Kalt has been a visiting professor at The University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. He is also faculty chair for nation building programs at the Native Nations Institute. Professor Kalt has served as the faculty chair of the Harvard University Native American Program, as well as the Kennedy School ‘s Academic Dean for Research, chair of degree programs, chair of Ph.D. programs, and chair of the economics and quantitative methods section. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of The Communications Institute. He served as advisor to Canada’s Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a commissioner on the President’s Commission on Aviation Safety, and on the Steering Committee of the National Park Service’s National Parks for the 21st Century.

Prof. Kalt is a native of Tucson, Arizona. He and his wife, Judy Gans, have two children. He received his Ph.D. (1980) and M.A. (1977) in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, and his B.A. (1973) in Economics from Stanford University.