Barbara Balaj, PhD, has been with the World Bank since 1989, where she has focused on transition and conflict-affected countries in Central/Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East and North Africa. She is the author of numerous World Bank and international journal publications on post-conflict reconstruction, international aid coordination, migration and Diaspora communities, institution building and development, and the economics of peace.

She is currently head of the American Academy in Berlin Alumni Association, and has served on the Academy’s Board of Trustees since 2007. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the High Atlas Foundation. She is a guest lecturer at the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute on international economic issues related to the Balkans, and the Middle East and North Africa regions.

Balaj was a Fulbright Guest Scholar at the German Society for Foreign Affairs and the French Institute for International Relations in 1990-91. From 1988-1989 she was a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow and worked at the German Foreign Ministry and in the Bundestag with the FDP Fraktion. She was a State Department Intern at the American Consulate in Frankfurt, West Germany, in 1987.